Every day, sex trafficking survivors who petition the courts for expungement have to relive their trauma and recount every incident that led to every conviction. For Monica Charleston, it meant reliving 170 related felonies to have them cleared from her record.
Charleston was trafficked until her early 20s and had more than 170 related felonies because of it. Her expungement process was nearly a year but she recalls it being the longest year of her life. Charleston had to relive all the times she had been abused and raped in order to prove she was a sex-trafficking victim.
Currently, there is a proposed bill that would allow survivors to have their felonies expunged without a long, intrusive investigation. Learn more about Charleston’s story and Monica’s Law on Rewire News.