The University of Michigan Law School is continuing to be a groundbreaking, legal resource for the U.S. anti-slavery movement.
In 2009, the school opened the country’s first legal clinic dealing exclusively with human trafficking. Directed by Professor Bridgette Carr, the Human Trafficking Law Project (HTLP) and Human Trafficking Clinic (HTC) is a practical testing ground for the implementation of U.S. anti-slavery laws. “Human Trafficking laws are new and untested,” the clinic’s website says. Students who take part in the program “will and continue to be instrumental in protecting victims’ rights, in shaping the policy conversation, and in drafting the language used in amendments to trafficking laws.”
INTERACTIVE DATABASE OF HUMAN TRAFFICKING CASES
Now, the clinic has launched a public, interactive database of U.S. human trafficking prosecutions and law suits. This is an invaluable resource for everyone in the anti-slavery movement. Here is what the the HTLP says about the database:
“The goal of the project is to provide information for advocates, lawmakers, law enforcement, governments, nongovernmental organizations, and media to use in combating human trafficking. For example, lawyers could use the information in the database to frame their cases and research what other tactics have been most successful in the past.”
CROSS BORDER PARTNERSHIP
Last September, the clinic received federal funding to open another human trafficking legal clinic at a law school in Mexico, to address the “push factors” that force people into trafficking situations. Carr told the National Law Journal, “[H]ere in the U.S., we can do a lot as far as assisting prosecutors and victims of trafficking, [but] what we can’t work on as much is prevention, because we’re sitting here in Ann Arbor.”