Lawyers Manual - Unified Court System

372 Dorchen A. Leidholdt
Before your client meets with criminal justice authorities, you should obtain the
assurance that she will not be charged criminally and will not be pressured or
forced to cooperate.
If your client has been arrested for soliciting for the purposes of prostitution,
you may need to intervene with the police and the assistant district attorney to
help them understand that she is not a criminal but a victim. A conviction for
prostitution is far from trivial. If your client has children, a criminal investigation
or conviction for prostitution could result in the initiation of a child welfare
investigation or a civil charge of child neglect or could be used against her in a
custody dispute. It could also defeat her efforts to win legal immigration status,
although in certain circumstances she can obtain a waiver from this bar to
admissibility into the United States. (If your immigrant client has been convicted
of prostitution, refer her immediately to an immigration lawyer with expertise
in immigration law remedies for victims of gender-based violence.) Educating
investigators, prosecutors, law guardians and fact-finders about trafficking and
sexual exploitation and helping them understand that victims of these practices
are often good, protective mothers will be a critical part of your advocacy.
You may confront and have to challenge a double standard that blames your
client for her sexual exploitation while ignoring the role that her male partner
played as pimp or customer.
Your client’s ordeal as a victim of trafficking or other forms of sexual
exploitation may render her eligible for certain kinds of immigration relief.
Victims of “severe trafficking” (trafficking involving force, fraud, or coercion)
who cooperate with the investigation or prosecution of their exploiters and can
demonstrate that they would suffer “extreme hardship” if returned to their home
countries may be eligible for T Visas under the Trafficking Victims Protection
Act. 13 If your client has suffered substantial physical or mental abuse as the result
of having been prostituted or trafficked and cooperates with the investigation or
prosecution of her exploiters, she may be eligible for a three year U Visa. 14 If
your client’s ordeal as a victim of trafficking or prostitution resulted in persecution
in her country of origin or if your client faces a well-founded fear of future
persecution because traffickers and/or their confederates may persecute her upon
her return to her native country, she may be eligible for asylum. 15 Finally, if your
client in good faith married her pimp, trafficker, or customer, if he was a US
citizen or permanent resident, and if she was subjected to “battering or extreme
cruelty,” she may be eligible for a battered spouse waiver or to self-petition under
the Violence Against Women Act.