Melissa Sontag Broudo, Esq. is an attorney with the Sex Workers Project in New York City. Ms. Broudo provides legal advocacy, advice, and information to sex workers and survivors of trafficking on a variety of issues, including privacy, family law, criminal law and civil consequences of convictions. Prior to joining SWP, Ms. Broudo worked with various organizations that engaged individuals who are marginalized because of poverty, criminalization, or discrimination based on gender, sexual orientation, or HIV status, and most recently was a Staff Attorney with the Children’s Law Center. Ms. Broudo graduated from Brown University, the Bloomberg School of Public Health at Johns Hopkins University, and Georgetown University Law Center.
Vacating convictions laws are a step in the right direction for survivors of trafficking. Ultimately, however, creating fair working conditions and ending abuses in low-wage industries will ultimately do far more to end trafficking in persons and protect the human rights of workers in vulnerable situations.
