States throughout the country in recent years have increasingly adopted laws that allow human trafficking victims to petition legal systems to clear their criminal records of related offenses, but actually securing that relief can be easier said than done.

The procedures that trafficking survivors must follow for obtaining expungements can differ among the 44 states that offer relief in some capacity. Even more varied is the relative buy-in by local prosecutors within each state for facilitating the process, according to victims' advocates.

"It can be easy to see someone as a defendant and not as a survivor," said Andrew King-Ries, chair of the American Bar Association Commission on Domestic and Sexual Violence, which recently issued guidelines that prosecutors can follow for how to streamline the criminal record relief process for victims.

The commission's November report, which does not necessarily represent the position of the overall ABA, grew out of a collaboration not only of association officials and victims' advocates, but also U.S. Department of Justice officials and prosecutors from locales such as the Denver District Attorney's Office, the San Diego District Attorney's Office and the Manhattan District Attorney's Office.

Going forward, the report will be offered as a resource to prosecutors, victims' advocacy organizations and those seeking to enact or amend state laws that offer criminal record relief, King-Ries said.

Among the guidelines are that prosecutors should try not to serve as "roadblocks" for victims who are seeking criminal record relief and that they should not require interviews with victims or extensive documentation as part of corroborating the relief claims.

"They're not going to have extensive documentation of their victimization," said Kate Mogulescu, the report's co-author, of human trafficking survivors. "That would be unrealistic. That's not how trafficking works, that's not how victimization works, that's not how life works."

While laws in some locales limit relief to only prostitution-related offenses, other jurisdictions offer relief for a broader set of offenses, such as those related to robbery or illegal sales of drugs.

As survivors turn to the courts for help clearing such convictions, prosecutors should work collaboratively with victims' advocates and attorneys and recognize that the relief "is the righting of a historical wrong" that can reduce isolation and vulnerability for survivors, according to the report.

The ABA commission report referenced a March report by Polaris, a nonprofit that graded the states on criteria such as the range of the offenses covered by the relief, whether the relief is only offered for clearing convictions or also for records of arrests or nonprosecutions, and whether the relief provides a full vacatur or a form of sealing or expungement. Twenty-eight states received an F grade, with only Nebraska getting a B grade.

While the ABA commission report touches on how some prosecutors believe related laws could be streamlined among different states, such as by recognizing that relief should be offered for criminal offenses other than prostitution-related charges, the report's focus is not on legislative fixes, but rather on how prosecutors can act more cohesively on the issue.

"Prosecutors wield so much power in the criminal legal system that even the best-written laws that provide the fullest relief will not be actualized without the buy-in and support of prosecutors," Mogulescu said. "Prosecutors, in many instances, are the gatekeepers to this relief."

The report's guidelines are designed to give prosecutors sufficient direction for how to deal with human trafficking victims, as they determine whether or not criminal record relief is warranted, said E. Dalia Racine, an attorney advisor at AEquitas. A nonprofit organization composed of former prosecutors, AEquitas participated in the discussions that led to the ABA commission's report.

Rather than simply following a narrow formula for granting relief, prosecutors should "have the discretion to determine how strong is the correlation between the offense and the trafficking," said Racine, a former assistant district attorney in DeKalb and Fulton counties in Georgia.

"You have to accept the reality that sometimes you will have corroborating documents and sometimes you will not," Racine said.

The criminal record relief process is not about faulting prosecutors for supposedly having wrongly convicted someone, but is rather a recognition that the criminal justice system is imperfect and that room should be allowed for correction, said Jean Bruggeman, executive director of Freedom Network USA, a victims' advocacy group.

"When people are within a trafficking situation or don't identify as victims, they're almost universally unlikely to bring those facts forward so that a prosecutor could understand their case," Bruggeman said.

Once victims do escape their prior situations and are able to articulate what happened to them, the criminal record relief process allows prosecutors to bring a "greater measure of justice" to survivors, she said.

Obtaining the relief is important for survivors, from the psychological aspect of clearing their names to the practical aspect of being able to obtain jobs, occupational licenses, educational opportunities, or even access to their children, Mogulescu said.

"Prosecutors generally, as a culture, believe firmly in the finality of conviction and the importance of maintaining criminal records. Their instinct in most cases is to oppose criminal record relief," Mogulescu said. "We're urging them to take a different position here because of the nature of human trafficking and what people experienced."

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--Editing by Katherine Rautenberg.