Image by Getty Images via @daylife By KAREN ZRAICK
Gov. David A. Paterson has signed a law that will allow victims of sex trafficking to clear prostitution convictions from their criminal records. Advocates for sex workers said the bill, signed on Friday, is the first of its kind. It allows an individual to have a conviction vacated if she was forced into prostitution, and it also applies to related crimes like loitering.
“It’s a hard reality that trafficked people are often arrested, convicted, and released without the justice system realizing what’s really going on,” Sienna Baskin, co-director of the Sex Workers Project at the Urban Justice Center, which helped write the bill, said in a statement.
A victim’s record can be a major impediment when applying for jobs, housing or immigration status, Ms. Baskin said. “With this landmark legislation, New York has created a model that will help end treatment of these survivors as criminals,” she added.
One of the group’s clients, a young woman who used the pseudonym Kate to discuss her experiences, said she ran away from her home in a New York suburb to escape abuse at 14. She was quickly recruited by a violent pimp who forced her into sex work, she said. Several customers sexually assaulted her.
Kate was arrested and convicted on charges of prostitution. Melissa Broudo, a consulting lawyer with the Sex Workers Project, said that traffickers often tell under-age prostitutes to give fake ages, so they are processed quickly as adults and can go back on the street.
At age 17, Kate escaped from “the life,” and a year later she testified against the pimp, who was sent to jail. Now 22, she has started a new life: she works as a bank teller, takes college classes and hopes to continue in finance, she said in a phone interview.
One particularly difficult segue, though, was having to disclose her prostitution conviction to a manager when she applied for her job last year. She was still hired, but she hopes not to have to dredge up her past in the workplace again.
“A lot of times when you’re under age and there’s someone else that’s forcing you into it,” she said, “your mentality at that time is you feel like you’re brainwashed.”
Of the possibility of vacating her conviction, she added, “It makes me feel better, because it’s behind me now.”
Assemblyman Richard N. Gottfried, who sponsored the bill along with State Senator Thomas K. Duane, said a criminal record too often blocked victims from opportunities to rebuild their lives.
“The new law will give these victims a desperately needed second chance,” Mr. Gottfried said in a statement.
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