Continued from the February 2025 blog article: Sweeping Trafficking Reform Legislation in Michigan – 20 bills introduced
Michigan is one of the top ten states for confirmed human trafficking cases.
Traffickers exert total control over victims, and Michigan victims are often charged with prostitution offenses or are coerced by traffickers to commit other crimes, including drug and theft-related crimes, Palepu remarked. In order to empower those who have been trafficked to hold their perpetrators to account in court and be able to rebuild their own lives, the state as a whole needs to reframe how it talks about trafficking and provide legal protection for those coming forward.
Lawmakers heard testimony last week on more than 20 bills that would reframe policies on human trafficking.
House bills 5836 and 5838 would expand Michigan’s expungement rules to allow for survivors of human trafficking to have criminal convictions set aside if those convictions were a direct result of them being a victim of human trafficking. There are existing exemptions for those offenses related to prostitution, but the bills expand expungement to all qualifying criminal acts committed while being trafficked.
Moving forward, Palepu said other bills being presented will provide survivors of human trafficking a chance at better interaction in the legal system. Namely, HB 5837 would specify that survivors have an affirmative defense against prosecution for criminal conduct performed as a result of being actively trafficked.
This isn’t an entirely new concept to Michigan courts, Palepu reasoned, as affirmative defenses such as self-defense, entrapment, and insanity already exist. The extension to trafficking victims would recognize the depth of control traffickers exert while providing avenues for survivors to reach out to authorities for help.
“Survivors have little to no control over their actions while they are being trafficked, and often they are forced to commit other criminal acts and would suffer consequences for their failure to commit such acts,” Palepu said.
Law enforcement and local prosecutors want to help trafficking victims, but current criminal codes box in what they can do within the justice system, Brian Martin, an investigator at Oakland County Prosecutor’s Office, said.
Right now, if a victim of human trafficking takes a stand against their perpetrator, they’re open to prosecution for their own criminal acts performed while being trafficked, Cindy Brown, section leader of the Oakland County Human Trafficking Unit, said.
Brown said she’s been adjusting witness immunity under the prostitution chapter of the Criminal Code that has existed since 1999 to try and protect victims of trafficking, but the rules are ill-fitting and fail to represent the difference between prostitution and human trafficking.
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