Metropolitan Family Services

The Legal Aid Society’s Human Trafficking Initiative is the collaboration of the Legal Aid Society of Metropolitan Family Services (LAS), volunteer law firms and community groups that provides free legal services to human trafficking survivors who face legal problems related to trafficking.

The Human Trafficking Initiative is a one-stop shop designed to meet the comprehensive legal needs of trafficking survivors. Services “wrap around” clients to provide legal counsel and connections to social services.

Metropolitan’s Legal Aid Society has relationships with a number of exceptional Chicago-area law firms. These firms volunteer their skills, expertise and resources and co-counsel cases with the Legal Aid Society to represent human trafficking survivors.

The Human Trafficking Initiative’s services include:

• Recovering money from those who made money from forcing, keeping or tricking individuals
  into performing work or commercial sex acts
• Removing a prostitution conviction from a survivor’s record
• Obtaining special immigration status
• Helping with orders of protection, divorce, custody and eviction
• Clearing a survivor’s credit history if someone used his/her name or credit card (removing any debt a trafficker or pimp built up under a survivor’s name)
• Assisting with other legal issues.

 

When it comes to the difference that the Human Trafficking Initiative is making in people’s lives, here are some examples:

“Jorge” came to us after he saw a newspaper article about his trafficker – showing how the trafficker had harmed other individuals and the actions they had taken against him. It was the first time Jorge learned there might be help
available for him. We helped Jorge report the crimes committed against him to law enforcement.

A need we didn’t anticipate when we started the project was helping victims remove debt that their trafficker accumulated in their name. “Riza” had nearly $80,000 of consumer debt that her trafficker had taken out in her name. We helped Riza discharge that debt which allowed her to move forward with her life. Unfortunately we are discovering it is somewhat common for traffickers to take out debt or lines of credit under the victim’s name that will follow the victims long after they have been removed from the trafficking situation.

For more information about the Human Trafficking Initiative, call 312-986-4200 and mention the Human Trafficking Initiative or email us at atlasst@metrofamily.org.