Moore & Van Allen Launches Innovative Tool to Empower Human Trafficker Survivors through Financial Literacy
In observance of the United Nations’ World Day Against Trafficking in Persons, Moore & Van Allen PLLC (MVA) is pleased to announce that the Human Trafficking Pro Bono Project, in collaboration with Lexington Law and Credit.com, has developed an online financial wellness tool for human trafficking survivors.
Many human trafficking survivors experience financial exploitation at the hands of traffickers. Specifically, traffickers may require victims to co-sign for leases and car loans, or open bank accounts and credit cards that become mismanaged. Although a survivor may become free of the physical exploitation of being trafficked, the resulting financial instability and exclusion, along with delinquent credit status impairs survivor recovery for years.
Recognizing the financial inclusion needs of trafficking survivors and connecting with the Firm’s financial services practices and participating clients, MVA expanded its pro bono services to address this first by providing credit repair services, followed by connecting survivors to safe banking. Today, MVA launches the next suite of services to advance the financial stability of survivors through an online financial literacy tool. This multi-module portal is intended to help survivors build good credit after bad and ensure sustainable financial wellness.
MVA credits Lexington Law and Credit.com for building the portal and the United Nations Finance Against Slavery & Trafficking Initiative for partnering in the fight against financial exploitation of survivors. “Modern slavery and trafficking survivors wanting to understand how to manage money and know how the financial system works, after only knowing financial abuse, are topics that comes up repeatedly in FAST’s work to support countries to safely remove barriers which impede financial access for those who have lived through the trauma of exploitation,” says Dr. Leona Vaughn, Vulnerable Populations Lead at FAST. “The FAST Survivor Inclusion Initiative Expert Review was undertaken by Sarah Byrne at Moore and Van Allen – through this she gave voice to concerns of survivors in the US and Canada about needing support on how to budget, save and rebuild credit histories. This is an incredible financial literacy tool that will help address these concerns for so many,” says Dr. Vaughn.
The United Nations’ theme for this year’s World Day Against Trafficking in Persons is “reach every victim of trafficking, leave no one behind.” “We at the MVA Human Trafficking Pro Bono Project are proud to advance this mission every day, through both our comprehensive legal services to survivors, now including financial wellness, and our corporate collaborations with banks, company clients, and partners like Lexington Law and Credit.com, in the fight against trafficking,” says Attorney Byrne.