Supporting Child Victims News Archive

This Human Trafficking Prevention Month, learn how we’re supporting survivors of human trafficking in healing from traumatic experiences and becoming leaders and advocates in their own communities.

With a series of interactive graphic novels, we help guide and support children navigating the legal system as victims and witnesses. An additional set of guides we worked to create ensure that practitioners have what they need to do the same.

Well over 100,000 children have to interact with the legal system each year in the United States, as victims or witnesses to crime. A series of graphic novels we helped to create use storytelling and illustration to empower children through the process.

These materials were created by the Center for Court Innovation with funding from Office of Victims of Crime (OVC) and are newly translated into African French; Brazilian Portuguese; Chinese (simplified); Spanish; and Vietnamese. These Child Victims and Witnesses Support Materials are for use with young survivors of human trafficking, including excerpts of support from individuals with lived experience and information for a reader who might find themselves in a similar situation.

Citing our 2016 national study finding that more than a third of young people involved in the U.S. sex trade were boys and young men, this article details the challenges presented with supporting those victimized in ways the public often assumes applies mostly to women and girls. For many men and boys, incidents are not reported, their stories stifled by stigma and shame, keeping these victims unseen and without access to help they need.

Can the justice system make a positive difference in a family? Can courts promote healthy relationships between parents and children? These New Thinking podcasts give inside views of innovations for youth and families involved in the justice system.

In an effort to improve the judicial response to 16 and 17 year old offenders, the Center for Court Innovation is helping the New York State Court System pilot the Adolescent Diversion Program. If the initiative succeeds, Chief Judge Jonathan Lippman hopes to institutionalize it across the state.