About Us
The Human Trafficking Prevention Project (HTPP) focuses on reducing the collateral consequences of criminal legal involvement for sex workers, survivors of human trafficking and those populations put at highest risk of exploitation.
The HTPP works in partnership with Maryland Volunteer Lawyers Service (MVLS), the state’s largest provider of pro bono legal services. HTPP staff represent clients in criminal record relief matters, including, but not limited to, expungement, shielding, and vacatur of convictions.
Through our partnership with MVLS, the HTPP is also able to provide clients with legal help in other civil legal matters, including family law, consumer debt, credit repair, tax disputes, and name and gender marker changes among other legal issues.
Mission & Vision
MISSION: The Human Trafficking Prevention Project is dedicated to ending the criminalization of sex workers and survivors of human trafficking through access to civil legal services and support for policies that dismantle harmful systems and increase access to basic human rights and legal relief. Additionally, we seek to prevent exploitation in populations put at highest risk through partnerships with organizations that are intersectional to our own.
VISION: We envision a world where people are able to pursue a life of their choosing free from exploitation, criminalization, and stigma. We believe in supporting and creating systems that foster autonomy, self-sufficiency, agency, and recovery from trauma, oppression, control, and violence.
HTPP STAFF
HTPP DIRECTOR
Jessica Emerson,
LMSW, Esq.
Jessica Emerson, LMSW, Esq. (she/her) began the Human Trafficking Prevention Project at the University of Baltimore School of Law in August of 2015. Prior to founding the HTPP, Ms. Emerson was a staff attorney and Equal Justice Works Fellow at the Women’s Law Center of Maryland, where she began an innovative project focused on addressing the criminalization of sex trafficking survivors. Ms. Emerson received her J.D. from the University of Baltimore School of Law in 2013. Prior to attending law school, she was a clinical social worker at the Mount Sinai Adolescent Health Center in New York City, where she provided intensive, individual mental health counseling and case management services to HIV-positive and sexually high-risk adolescents, as well as group counseling and HIV testing services to adolescent survivors of domestic sex trafficking and LGBTQIA+ youth at partnering community agencies. Ms. Emerson received her Master of Science in Social Work degree from Columbia University in 2001 with a focus on health, mental health, and disabilities. She trains statewide and nationally on criminal record relief for survivors of trafficking, marginalized populations, trauma and traumatic reactions, and the collateral consequences of criminal convictions for people in the commercial sex industry. She also co-authored a national report that rated all 50 states and the District of Columbia on the effectiveness of their trafficking-specific criminal record relief laws. Ms. Emerson is a barred attorney in Maryland, and a licensed social worker in New York State.
LEGAL ADVOCATE
Saint St. Aubin
Saint St. Aubin (they/she), joined the Human Trafficking Prevention Project as a Legal Advocate in April of 2024. Prior to joining the HTPP, Saint was a court advocate at Hope & Healing Survivor Resource Center/Rape Crisis Center in Akron, OH, which is also part of a regional Human Trafficking Task Force in Northeast Ohio. There, Saint served a diverse population of survivors impacted by sexual and intimate partner violence, human trafficking, and the criminal legal system. After completing a curriculum involving various trainings on
trauma-informed care, human trafficking, and sexual violence, they became a Credentialed Advocate through the National Advocate Credentialling Program (NACP) in 2023. Saint graduated with their Bachelor of Social Work degree from Ursuline College in May of 2024.
MVLS STAFF
Working in Partnership with the HTPP