Our Work
The Challenge
Across the United States, girls and gender-expansive young people are arrested, charged, and sentenced by a legal system that fails to recognize the root cause of gender-based violence and the mitigating factors of their age and developmental stage. Rather than receiving the services and support they deserve and need to heal, girls — especially girls of color — are criminalized and punished.
There are many paths that lead girls and gender-expansive youth into the justice system after experiencing sexual violence, all of which require intervention and systemic change. Examples include:
Girls who experience sexual violence in childhood are more likely to become involved in the legal system later in their lives
Girls who are survivors of sex trafficking are unjustly charged with prostitution and related offenses
Girls who report sexual assault to police are disbelieved and arrested on false reporting charges
Girls who escape abusive homes or miss school because they are being trafficked are punished on runaway or truancy (status offense) charges.
Learn more about the abuse to prison pipeline for girls and gender-expansive youth, as well as law and policy solutions, in Criminalized Survivors: Today’s Abuse to Prison Pipeline for Girls (2023), co-authored by the Center on Gender Justice & Opportunity at Georgetown Law and Rights4Girls.
The Opportunity
The Justice for Youth Survivors Initiative aims to be a preeminent leader in ending criminalization by serving as a national education, research, convening, and resource hub for legal practitioners and victim advocates, and as a training ground for young people interested in pursuing equity in law and policy.
Our Theory of Change
Led by girls and gender-expansive youth, the Initiative aims to transform the legal system by providing resources, research, and solutions to achieve a just, safe, and liberated world for survivors of child sex trafficking, abuse, and assault. The Justice for Youth Survivors Initiative serves to engage and educate professionals, equip advocates, support victims, inform about protective laws, and inspire a new generation to champion race and gender equity.
