Human Trafficking Clinic Receives Grant to Combat Commercial Exploitation of Children
The clinic is partnering with Google, Demand Abolition, Thorn, and others to recommend paths to end impunity for sex buyers of minors.
Boston University School of Law’s Human Trafficking Clinic has received a generous grant to study how prosecutors across the country address the commercial sexual exploitation of children. The clinic is partnering with Google, Demand Abolition, and Thorn to examine statutes under which sex buyers of minors are prosecuted in various jurisdictions and recommend new approaches to hold sex buyers accountable for their crimes. The project will also explore how technology can be used for criminal investigations and evidence collection.
“For too long have buyers have been able to purchase sex from minors with impunity,” says Ziba Cranmer, executive director of Demand Abolition, which works to eliminate the commercial sex industry by reducing the demand for commercial sex. “We are thrilled to collaborate with these partners to reframe the dialogue about this critical human rights issue and make clear that purchase of sex from minors is child abuse and unacceptable.”
“There are a growing number of crimes that apply to the commercial sexual exploitation of children, but too few prosecutions move forward,” says Julie Dahlstrom, director of the Human Trafficking Clinic. One of the reasons, she explains, is that different states use different statutes to approach these crimes. Some prosecutors use solicitation statutes, while others charge under human trafficking statutes, but this results in a sporadic, piecemeal approach that does little to deter sex buyers of minors.
The Human Trafficking Clinic, in coordination with attorneys from Ropes & Gray, who are generously volunteering their time to assist with the research, will survey prosecutors across the country to understand how they charge these crimes, and what is and isn’t working. These case studies will inform their findings, which will provide guidance to prosecutors as they try cases involving the commercial sexual exploitation of children.
The goal is to use victim-centered, trauma-informed responses so these cases are not prosecuted in a way that criminalizes or re-traumatizes the victim. The partners on the grant recommend the use of existing child abuse, sexual violence, and child welfare statutes to ensure sex buyers of minors are held accountable.
Thorn, a nonprofit organization that drives technology innovation to fight child sexual exploitation, will provide an overview of the role of technology in the commercial sexual exploitation of children and outline current technology-based interventions. “We believe that addressing demand is crucial to the fight to end child sex trafficking and support any efforts to prosecute child abuse cases effectively,” says Julie Cordua, Thorn’s CEO. “We want to arm prosecutors with more tools to combat child sexual exploitation and recognize that using the child abuse framework to prosecute offenders can provide an alternative outlet for successful prosecution and deterrence. Ultimately, we hope to deter predatory behavior and make online environments more hostile to this type of abuse.”
The end result of the research will be a guide for Attorneys General and a toolkit for prosecutors on the ground to make immediate use of the report. “The goal is to put our report in the hands of people who can provide national guidance,” Dahlstrom says. “The good news is that prosecutors already know how to handle child abuse cases. If we can overcome certain hurdles that are keeping these cases from moving forward, we can shift the framework nationally.”
While students in the clinic typically split their time between representing clients who are survivors of sexual or labor trafficking and participating in policy projects informed by that representation, this year they will each be assigned a specific research role related to this project in addition to casework. “This is a great opportunity for our students to be involved in a project that will make a difference nationally on an important topic,” Dahlstrom says.
