Traffickers often exploit individuals through financial or economic coercion or abuse. Many individuals who experience trafficking are not allowed to decide when or how to earn money, keep their earnings, or control their personal finances.
A provision in the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) serves as an important tool for helping people who have experienced trafficking. The Debt Bondage Repair Act (DBRA) allows for removal of adverse credit information resulting from someone’s trafficking experience. In September 2022, OTIP published a program instruction authorizing funding recipients to provide the necessary documentation to request that credit agencies block adverse information from a client’s credit report.
Recently, Interface Children and Family Services (Interface), a recipient of OTIP’s Lighthouse: Services, Outreach, and Awareness for Labor Trafficking Demonstration Program, based in California, shared that it successfully used the DBRA to help a client remove adverse credit information that accumulated during her trafficking experience.
Catherine Pedrosa, Director of Human Trafficking Prevention & Intervention at Interface explained that by working together with the client, they provided information to credit agencies confirming that the adverse credit information on her report resulted from human trafficking. Credit agencies removed the negative information, and within a week, the client’s credit score increased by 100 points. As a result, the client successfully passed a credit check to rent an apartment, find stable employment, and regain independence.
In Arizona, Savannah Sanders, Executive Director and Lived-Experience Expert at Applejack’s Ranch, shared a similar success story. In this case, she used the DBRA to raise her credit score by more than 200 points in 45 days, allowing her to obtain a reliable car and an apartment. She described how healing it was to see her new score and know she would not have to live with the consequences of her trafficking during the second part of her life.
Savannah noted that the process includes some barriers. The first barrier is the emotional hurdle of feeling undeserving of help from the program.
The second barrier involves finding an entity that can write a letter to the credit bureaus. Federal agencies can authorize non-governmental organizations to provide documentation, and OTIP has granted this authority to its recipients and subrecipients; however, finding an authorized organization can still be difficult. OTIP maintains a list of all funding recipients it has authorized; subrecipients can be found through the recipient.
The examples shared by Catherine and Savannah clearly demonstrate the impact of removing adverse credit information through the DBRA. OTIP remains committed to improving survivors’ economic mobility and healing by increasing access to this important resource.
For more information, refer to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s Fast Facts (PDF) document or visit their webpage: I’m a victim of trafficking. How do I block items from my credit report that are the result of trafficking.