© 2022 Mintz, Levin, Cohn, Ferris, Glovsky and Popeo. P.C.
Giving Hope to Individuals Exploited by the Sex Trade
PRO BONO
Living in Freedom Together (LIFT)
//
A Q&A with Nikki Bell, the Founder and CEO of LIFT
Why Found LIFT?
What is LIFT?
Working Together
The
EMMA Coalition
Justice Through Legislation
The Equality Model
Why Found LIFT?
The Equality Model
What is LIFT?
Working Together
Justice Through Legislation
The
EMMA Coalition
Our Commitment to Fighting Sex Trafficking
Mintz has long worked to bring justice to sex trafficking survivors. In 2016, a woman contacted us after reading an article about our work in this area. She had been trafficked across the country as a juvenile and young adult, during which she was arrested and prosecuted in many states for prostitution-related offenses. Prior to this, she had no other involvement with law enforcement.
Not sure who your local representative is? to look up
your government representatives, local through federal levels.
Click here
Support LIFT
An Act to Strengthen
If you are a Massachusetts resident, contact your state representative and share your support for
What Can You Do?
The EMMA Coalition
© 2022 Mintz, Levin, Cohn, Ferris, Glovsky and Popeo. P.C.
Share to Social:
Collaborating to Improve
Lives and Communities
Learn More
Pro bono service is at the heart of Mintz's culture and identity. Together, we provide individuals with life-changing assistance and support the nonprofit organizations that care for our communities.
Afghanistan Refugee Project
Living in Freedom Together (LIFT)
Our client Nikki Bell shares how her experience with prostitution and trafficking led her to found a survivor-led organization to help others in similar situations — and discusses our collaboration in drafting pending Massachusetts legislation that would decriminalize prostitution for prostituted people, many of whom are victims of human trafficking, while maintaining penalties for buyers and pimps.
Enacting this bill will impact peoples’ lives because being criminalized for prostitution creates several barriers for people. It can impact things like housing or employment opportunities. I remember when my husband and I went out to find our first apartment: the landlord loved us, but he said [as standard procedure] that he would have a private investigator take a look at our records. I remember just freezing at the moment, not knowing what to say. But my husband said, “I want you to know that the people you see on that report are not going to be who is standing in front of you today.” Thankfully, the landlord gave us a chance, but most landlords would not have taken that risk. Having these convictions creates barriers to getting jobs and interferes with your relationship with your children. Having this law would impact folks by helping them find pathways outside prostitution and helping them remove themselves from the cycle of arrest and incarceration.
The bill creates an interagency committee for public health and awareness campaigns around prostitution, providing pathways for survivors to access resources around housing, substance use, legal aid, and mental health, among other areas.
3.
The bill expunges previous prostitution charges from people’s records and eliminates the need to apply for vacatur; and
2.
The bill decriminalizes those being prostituted in the sex trade (the offenses of common streetwalking and sex for a fee would be eliminated);
1.
"Having this law would impact folks by helping them find pathways outside prostitution and remove themselves from the cycle of arrest."
If enacted, how will this bill Mintz is working on with you and the EMMA Coalition – An Act to Strengthen Justice and Support for Sex Trade Survivors – affect survivors or those trying to get out of the sex trade?
____________________________________ is a survivor-led effort that works to end prostitution through the implementation of the . We worked with __ Alec and ____ at Mintz to write legislation that brings relief to prostituted people, many of who have experienced trafficking. Mintz has continued to use its connections to help The EMMA Coalition educate others on how this bill would be applied. Mintz (including attorneys Alec, Alyssa, ____ __, _ __________ and project analyst Shaina Sikka) worked in partnership with us, and equally as hard as us, to make sure this bill becomes law because this is how we impact real change for survivors. Implementing this legislation will prevent people from being criminalized for survival, which is currently happening to those in the sex trade. We want to make sure that they don’t have to go through a burdensome process like vacatur. I was fortunate enough to work with attorneys who allowed me to share my story in a way that wasn’t re-traumatizing and overwhelming. Unfortunately, the reality is that there are few attorneys who know how to apply this statute and do it in trauma-informed way. And that has been a massive barrier for people accessing vacatur.
The Equality Model in MA (EMMA) Coalition
www.hr.org
Approximately seven female prostitues are arrested for every buyer
Female
Sex Worker
Buyer
Number of Arrests
Of Prostituted People
Have Faced Homelessness
75%
I connected with attorneys__________,___________ _ , __________ , and the team at Mintz to remove all those convictions in a way that enabled me to control the narrative. Even when people have left the sex trade, it’s still hard for us to disclose our trauma to our attorneys. I appreciate how Mintz pieced my story together through articles and helped me write that story myself in a way that did not require me to disclose every traumatic detail. I was fortunate to get the charges vacated.
My relationship with Mintz began about four years ago. I had a really lengthy criminal record. The majority of my record was related to prostitution that I was charged with while under the control of a trafficker or due to my exploitation. I had founded LIFT when I got out of the sex trade, but now I also had my little boy. It initially wasn’t a priority of mine to
take care of my criminal charges until I recognized it would impact my ability to be the mother I wanted to be. I would have been prevented from going to school field trips with my son or getting licenses for programming for LIFT. As a CEO of an organization, I knew that it could create obstacles to receiving our licenses or even being able to serve vulnerable youth. At that time, I had no choice but to display my record, but doing so reinforced how important it was for me to get the charges removed from my record.
Please share more about your relationship with Mintz — how it started and how you’ve worked with the firm.
LIFT has evolved over the last eight years. We started as a drop-in center and developed support groups that utilize a model to treat the whole person. We also founded the first program in the nation for prostituted women with substance use disorder. However, we realized that people also just needed a safe place. We then created an emergency shelter for women experiencing homelessness who were prostituted during the pandemic. In 2021, we found a building that we use for our day programming and advocacy programming for youth and adults. This space also holds shelter beds for our most vulnerable individuals. We also formed a partnership with the Latin American Health Alliance, where those in our program undergo education and job training opportunities in auto mechanics and food service.
"I strongly believe
that everyone should
have access
to resources;
who are we to
deem someone’s worthiness?"
aims to create real pathways and high-quality resources for the people we serve. People who are prostituted experience extreme violence and harm, and they overwhelmingly identify as people of color. These are individuals who are in poverty, living at the intersection of many vulnerabilities, and don’t have access to resources or support. Many programs require individuals to prove some level of “worthiness.” I strongly believe that everyone should have access to resources; who are we to deem someone’s worthiness? LIFT set out to create programs to minimize this power differential and to create access to opportunities for our most marginalized community members. Our programs can be accessed by individuals who are
still being exploited in the sex trade, as well as those who are trying to exit.
Please tell us more about your organization, LIFT.
Please tell us more about yourself.
I was exploited in the sex trade before I turned 16. Due to the trauma of it and lack of access to resources, I spent the majority of my adult life in the sex trade, in and out of jail and on the streets. I didn’t have the appropriate resources or support to “exit.” That’s why I founded LIFT — to create programming for survivors of prostitution led by survivors.
I am the founder and CEO of
LIFT (Living in
Freedom Together)
Equality Model
, a survivor-led organization that aims to end prostitution and sex trafficking through the implementation of the .
There are a variety of ways to advocate for and support work, from supporting programs for survivors to learning more about the system survivors have escaped.
LIFT's
Justice and Support for Sex Trade Survivors
LIFT 2020 Annual Report
The first step in the process of obtaining justice for our client was to obtain the dismissal of a 15-year-old open criminal matter in Massachusetts. Thereafter, we worked with her to vacate each of her prostitution-related convictions in other states as well as related juvenile records. The last piece of this effort was completed in July 2022, when Mintz prevailed on a motion to expunge an FBI fingerprint record that was the last vestige on her criminal record from the time when she was trafficked.
The firm’s dedication to human trafficking efforts has a tremendous impact on the individuals we represent, and we could not be more proud to have helped her and other survivors. Special thank you to attorneys_________ , ______ _____ , and _________ for their committed work on this effort, and to ____ _______ for her significant support.
Comprehensive Exit Programming
Investing in survivor-led exit programming will help prostituted people exit the life by providing access to resources for substance use disorder, transitional housing, education, training programs, and job opportunities for vulnerable populations.
Decrease the Demand
By legalizing the selling of sex but upholding laws against buying it, we can decrease the demand that exposes more people to harm and buyers, exploiters/traffickers, and brothel owners accountable.
The Equality Model repeals the crime of selling sex and laws designed to criminalize people being prostituted and vulnerable populations. This helps survivors exit cycles of violence and access support and programs.
Decriminalize Prostituted People
What is the Equality Model?
Also referred to as the Nordic Model or partial decriminalization, it is a comprehensive approach to abolishing the sex trade. The Equality Model addresses structures of violence, incorporates transformative justice, and breaks cycles of oppression.
1.
2.
3.
Equality Model
, or sign the Equality
Model in MA (EMMA) Coalition
I want to thank Mintz for highlighting the importance of this work. Not only do you get people to donate volunteer hours to support this bill, but you also continue to show up at legislation briefings to educate lawmakers about this bill.
Alyssa
Alec Zadek
Sofia Nuño
Lavinia
"I connected
with Alec and the
team at Mintz to
remove all those convictions in a way that enabled me to control the narrative."
LIFT
Alec Zadek
Alec
Alyssa
Mintz is also working with you as part of The EMMA Coalition to bring justice to survivors through legislation. Could you share more about The EMMA Coalition and this legislation, called An Act to Strengthen Justice and Support for Sex Trade Survivors?
Lavinia Weizel
Alyssa Scruggs
petition.
Sofia Nuño,
Kianna Phillips,
mintz
pro bono portfolio
//
2022
View the 2021 Pro Bono Journal
Transcending
View the 2020 Pro Bono Journal
Resilience
Weizel
Scruggs
mintz
pro bono portfolio
//
2022
Why Found LIFT?
What is LIFT?
Working Together
The EMMA Coalition
Justice Through Legislation
Why Found LIFT?
3.
2.
1.
The Equality Model
Alec Zadek
View the 2021 Pro Bono Journal
Transcending
Collaborating to Improve Lives and Communities
Pro bono service is at the heart of Mintz's culture and identity. Together, we provide individuals with life-changing assistance and support the nonprofit organizations that care for our communities.
Learn More
An Act to
Strengthen Justice and for Sex Trade Survivors
If you are a Massachusetts resident, contact your state representative and share your support for
in MA (EMMA) Coalition
, or sign the Equality Model
petition.
I want to thank Mintz for highlighting the importance of this work. Not only do you get people to donate volunteer hours to support this bill, but you also continue to show up at legislation briefings to educate lawmakers about this bill.
and project
Justice Through Legislation
What is LIFT?
Working Together
The EMMA Coalition
Justice Through Legislation
Why Found LIFT?
Working Together
The EMMA Coalition
What is LIFT?
Justice Through Legislation
Why Found LIFT?
What is LIFT?
The EMMA Coalition
Working Together
I connected with attorneys
team at Mintz to remove all those convictions in a way that enabled me to control the narrative. Even when people have left the sex trade, it’s still hard for us to disclose our trauma to our attorneys. I appreciate how Mintz pieced my story together through articles and helped me write that story myself in a way that did not require me to disclose every traumatic detail. I was fortunate to get the charges vacated.
Working Together
Justice Through Legislation
Why Found LIFT?
What is LIFT?
Working Together
The EMMA Coalition
Working Together
Why Found LIFT?
What is LIFT?
The EMMA Coalition
Justice Through Legislation
To Top
To Top
To Top
To Top
To Top
© 2022 Mintz, Levin, Cohn, Ferris, Glovsky and Popeo, P.C.
All Rights Reserved.
Share to Social:
Working Together
Why Found LIFT?
What is LIFT?
The EMMA Coalition
The Equality Model
Justice Through Legislation
