Robin Epley: Dems come roaring back with bill to help sex trafficking survivors clear their record

Robin Epley, The Sacramento Bee on Jun 6, 2025

Published in Op Eds

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Never let it be said that California Democrats were silent on the scourge of sex trafficking.

Assembly Bill 938 from Assemblywoman Mia Bonta, D-San Francisco confronts the disgrace of sex trafficking in California head-on by giving survivors the opportunity to vacate their records. It just passed out of the Assembly and will head to the State Senate next for approval; the high hopes of sex trafficking and sexual violence survivors across the state go with it.

“There’s a lot of terrible rhetoric and narrative that… tries to hit Democrats in particular as not being supportive of survivors, not being supportive of victims and having an allowance for sex trafficking,” Bonta said, “but nobody wants sex trafficking to exist.”

Bonta’s legislation would allow California courts to consider and accept vacatur and affirmative defense petitions from survivors of sex trafficking, intimate partner violence or sexual violence. A vacatur petition allows survivors of human trafficking or sexual violence to have their records vacated, sealed and destroyed; thereby vacating their arrest or conviction. An affirmative defense position would allow survivors to argue that they were coerced or forced into prostitution or other actions by a trafficker and therefore not wholly responsible for their actions.

To be eligible, the survivor must demonstrate with evidence that the offense was directly related to their experience as a victim.

Such a law would align California with a number of states that have already provided this pathway in the courts, including New York, Georgia, Wyoming and Wisconsin.

In California, 34% of women will experience domestic violence in their lifetime. Nationally, nearly half of all women in the U.S. have experienced physical violence, sexual violence or stalking by an intimate partner. These harms are particularly egregious for women of color.

More than 90% of human trafficking survivors are criminalized during their trafficking, with many being manipulated into illegal activities as a form of control. Survivors often plead guilty to avoid lengthy and re-traumatizing legal battles. Their criminalization, however, can become a roadblock to housing, employment and education opportunities, trapping survivors in cycles of poverty, homelessness and violence.

Sexual abuse and trafficking survivors deserve compassion, not punishment. AB 938 would ensure that survivors are able to move on from a traumatic situation without long-lasting effects due to draconian legislation based on puritanical values.

“Human trafficking can happen to anyone, but it affects marginalized groups more than others. At CAST, at least 88% of the survivors we have ever served are Black, Indigenous and people of color,” according to the Coalition to Abolish Slavery and Trafficking, a non-profit organization based in Los Angeles that supports Bonta’s bill, along with ValorUS and the Survivor Justice Center, among others.

Neither is this Assemblymember Bonta’s first foray into the issue: AB 2020 was signed into law by Governor Newsom last year, which established new protocols for law enforcement interacting with survivors of human trafficking. AB 938 itself follows on the heels of similar legislation from the assemblywoman in 2024, AB 2354, which died in the Assembly Appropriations Committee, even though it would have cost a pittance to implement. But Bonta said she is encouraged by a different attitude among Democrats in the legislature this year:

“I think context matters, and last year we were in a very serious moment of pushing a crime and punishment narrative,” Bonta said. “Sex trafficking victimization is very complex … and exploitation is a very challenging concept for people to be able to rally around.”

Criminalizing and punishing the victims of sex trafficking is not the answer, and it’s hopeful to see so many sex trafficking organizations rally around AB 938. With luck, it will pass out of the Senate as easily as it did the Assembly, but it will take courage from California Democrats in the upper house to tackle a subject they have so recently been burned on by those who would seek to distort the issue, and are in favor of harsh penalties for everyone involved regardless of their victimization.

Survivors are counting on that courage.

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