OHIO, USA — Ohio House Bill 214 has been signed into law by Ohio Governor Mike DeWine on July 24, 2024. The bill had been in the General Assembly for years according to several Ohio Senators WTOL 11 talked to.
The law is aimed at helping human trafficking survivors get a second chance by allowing them to apply for expunging their criminal records.
The University of Toledo's human trafficking and social justice institute executive director, Celia Williamson, is overjoyed for the passing. She said criminal records create barriers to getting stable employment, applying for safe stable housing, or chances at reuniting families. Therefore, now survivors can start over with a clean slate after escaping their abusers.
"Move from victim to survivor and now to thrive," Williamson said. "To begin to live the life that they should have had the opportunity to live had they not lost their freedom to a trafficker."
These women, and some men, who've been trafficked have likely committed crimes. Through this bipartisan law, they can apply to have misdemeanors and fourth and fifth-degree felonies wiped from their record. The bill passed the Ohio House of Representatives with 97 votes before being signed into law by the governor on Wednesday.
Getting bipartisan support from state senators and representatives, Democratic Sen. Paula Hicks-Hudson and Republican Sen. Stephanie Kunze said the same thing: give these trafficking survivors a second chance.
"Yes, they might have known right and wrong, but they also were in circumstances that the normal person may not have had to experience," Hicks-Hudson said.
Kunze adds how this law benefits the entire state.
"It's an economic development, kind of an economic tool to allow people back into the workforce," Kunze said. "That's our number one concern we hear from employers across the state no matter what industry you're in."
Both politicians have argued for the resolve of these victims, turned survivors, who want to be and are already likely working within their communities to make society better. Hicks-Hudson said these people have had experiences that could leave anyone to be broken or cracked, but she added that they are already putting themselves back together.
"This bill, I think, helps to polish some of those cracks so they're not as visible as what they would be before," Hicks-Hudson said.
"One of the comments we heard from some of the survivors was that this is the first time in their adult life that they really had the opportunity to dream of what their life would look like and how they would rebuild it," Kunze said. "It's definitely with great joy and gratitude that we celebrate."
HB 214 will not be an enacted law for 90 days. However, it is advised for anyone looking to benefit from it to reach out to local advocacy and support groups to start the paperwork for the expunging application.