A Victim Outside the Law

In 1995, 17-year-old Sara Kruzan was sentenced to life in prison for killing the man who had groomed her from the age of 11, trafficked her, sexually abused her, and forced her into prostitution. During her trial, the evidence of this abuse that was ongoing around the time of her action was excluded. The judge barred her attorney from introducing evidence of her abuser’s acts. As a result, the jury’s consideration of exploitation was limited and Kruzan was not legally recognized as a trafficking victim. Kruzan’s case drew national attention from legal scholars, advocates, and anti-trafficking organizations. Human Rights Watch created a video that uses her as an example of how a child victim can be criminalized rather than protected. She was eventually released following legislative changes and public pressure. Today, her experience is a landmark case of how survivors can fall outside the frameworks set to protect them.

How the Law Defines Trafficking Victims

Kruzan’s case, like many others, presents a broader challenge within the American response to human trafficking. The Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA) established the first comprehensive framework to prevent trafficking, prosecute traffickers, and protect survivors. Within this framework, individuals must be legally recognized as a victim first in order to obtain access to many of the Act’s protections. Under the TVPA’s definition, an adult is legally recognized as a victim of sex trafficking when a commercial sex act is induced through force, fraud, or coercion. Such recognition is based on more than a person’s lived experience. It is impacted by statutory definitions and evidentiary requirements, which determines who is a trafficking victim.

Survivors Who Do Not Fit Legal Definitions

There is a spectrum of survivors’ experiences that do not always align neatly with the legal language employed to define victimization. This showcases how the contexts in which exploitations take place are rarely uniform. Some forms of coercion are particularly difficult to recognize as they are not always visible or explicit. For instance, psychological abuse, economic dependence, trauma bonds, homelessness, and immigration-related vulnerability can limit an individual’s judgment of a situation. These factors can also affect their ability to safely exit an exploitative situation. Therefore, less overt forms of exploitation can complicate how trafficking definitions are applied in individual cases. As a result, survivors may face delays in being formally recognized as victims and accessing the protections and support available to them.

Societal Expectations of an ‘Ideal Victim’

Beyond the law, society often holds its own, sometimes narrower, definition of who counts as a victim. This is often influenced by broader social expectations about what a ‘real’ victim looks like. In 1986, Norwegian criminologist and sociologist Nils Christie introduced the concept of the “ideal victim”. He argued that society is more likely to recognize victims who are perceived as vulnerable and unrelated to the offender. This positions them as blameless for the harm they suffered. On this account, people who fit this description tend to receive more empathy and are viewed as more credible. Conversely, those who do not conform to the description may struggle to receive similar treatment and recognition. These perceptions do not remain confined to public opinion, as they can also shape the institutional responses the survivors’ encounter.

Courts are Still Defining Victimhood

Access to remedies such as vacatur of the verdict first depends on a survivor being legally recognized as a victim of human trafficking. This process is illustrated in People v. M.D.A. (2025). M.D.A., a trafficking survivor, sought to vacate ten drug-related convictions, stating that she had been forced and coerced by her trafficker to commit the offenses. In considering her request, the court evaluated years of force, fraud, coercion, and compelled criminal conduct. Ultimately, it was determined that the defendant qualified for relief under New York’s trafficking vacatur statute. Therefore, this case serves as an example of how courts translate a survivor’s experiences into the statutory categories required for legal relief. In this way, legal recognition becomes directly connected to a survivor’s ability to access the protections established by law.

Recognition as a Pathway to Legal Relief

In practice, recognized survivors may receive financial assistance, immigration relief, or wider opportunities for long-term recovery. Beyond access to these resources, the legal recognition as a trafficking victim affects a survivor’s ability to move beyond the legal interpretation of crimes committed by them during their own exploitation. Often, the offenses committed are deemed as acts of survival rather than reflecting independent criminal behavior. Consequently, it may lead to a criminal record, creating persistent obstacles in employment, housing, education, and financial stability. The aftermath of abuse remains long after the trafficking itself has ended, as legal outcomes can shape a survivor’s circumstances.

The Limits of Legal Categories

Although human experiences do not always fit neatly within legal definitions, the law fundamentally depends on these definitions to function. Human trafficking is only one example of this concern, and the tension extends well beyond a single area of law. As legislation is used to classify complex human experiences, the objective of a legal system is to balance the need for consistent standards with the realities they seek to address. Larger attention to particular, individual experiences can make legal categories less predictable. On the other hand, firm categories may lead to particular experiences without adequate representation. In this regard, human trafficking laws exist within the conflict between the law and the human experience. Even though the law will require clear boundaries, time and history have actively shown that lived realities often resist them.