Texas Law Students Help Honduran Woman Escape Trafficking -

Texas Law Students Help Honduran Woman Escape Trafficking

  • Published on
    May 28, 2019
  • Category:
    Law & Policy
Hero Banner

A Honduran woman and her children are now safe after law students and faculty at South Texas College of Law Houston helped her escape from human trafficking.

The 37-year-old woman, known as Maria (not her real name), found help from the college’s Asylum and Human Trafficking Clinic. A total of 14 law students assisted with her case.

Take Action: Help Stop Domestic Slavery

“The clinics help students to connect with why they went to law school and give them hands-on experience to use the law to help others,” said Kristin Zipple-Shedd, who runs the clinic that assisted the woman and her family. “The students function as student attorneys.”

Texas Lawyer reports:

Their involvement with Maria and her family began in 2015, when the nonprofit Kids in Need of Defense referred her then-12-year-old son and his twin sister to the clinic. As the student clinicians prepared their asylum cases, they met with the children’s mother, who disclosed facts that indicated she could be a victim of human trafficking.

“She said she wanted to make a report to the FBI about what happened to her,” Zipple-Shedd said.

Maria, who came to the United States around 2006, told the student clinicians that she had been looking for work when she met a Honduran man at a soccer game who offered her help. Zipple-Shedd said the man and his sister were perpetrators of human trafficking and forced Maria to work as a domestic servant and in a brothel.

After beating up a man who had sexually assaulted Maria, the man who initially offered her help instead forced her into a marriage with him as he and his sister continued to use force, fraud and coercion to force Maria to be a domestic worker and to work in the brothel, Zipple-Shedd said. She said the man told Maria, “Because I defended you, you’re my woman now.”

Maria managed to get away from the man, but he found her and beat her up, leading to him being prosecuted for domestic violence and eventually deported to Honduras. Yet even after his deportation, he continued to call Maria and threaten to harm her family back in Honduras.

With the assistance of the Asylum and Human Trafficking Clinic, Maria was certified as a victim of human trafficking by the FBI. It then allowed her to obtain a T visa — a special US visa granted to victims of human trafficking.

Maria, who doesn’t speak English, said through Zipple-Shedd, “The attorney and law students changed my life. I am thankful.”

Subscribe

Freedom United is interested in hearing from our community and welcomes relevant, informed comments, advice, and insights that advance the conversation around our campaigns and advocacy. We value inclusivity and respect within our community. To be approved, your comments should be civil.

stop icon A few things we do not tolerate: comments that promote discrimination, prejudice, racism, or xenophobia, as well as personal attacks or profanity. We screen submissions in order to create a space where the entire Freedom United community feels safe to express and exchange thoughtful opinions.

Notify of
guest
0 Comments
Most Voted
Newest Oldest
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments

This week

Meatpacking plants are repeat offenders of child exploitation

A shocking investigation by the Department of Labor (DOL) has uncovered persistent child labor violations at Seaboard Triumph Foods’ pork processing plant in Sioux City, Iowa. Over four years, children as young as 13 were illegally employed to sanitize hazardous equipment using corrosive chemicals, violating federal laws designed to protect minors from dangerous work. The revelations of widespread child labor exploitation in industries like

| Tuesday December 3, 2024

Read more