Degrees of Survival — When Learning Is a Lifeline for Trafficking Survivors

Nia always knew how to keep moving.

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She’d been on the streets since she was 14, slipping between shelters, couch-hopping with older men, and doing whatever it took to survive. At 17, she was arrested in a trafficking sting—though no one called it that. To the cops, she was just another “prostitute.”

To the courts, she was an offender. No one asked why she didn’t have a home. No one asked why a grown man had her ID in his wallet.

By the time she aged out of foster care and cycled through her third arrest, Nia had a rap sheet, no high school diploma, and a deep belief that school just wasn’t for people like her. She’d tried once—a night class at the community college when she was 20—but the financial aid forms asked for documents she didn’t have, and the advisor told her to come back “when things were more stable.”

When she finally entered a reentry program that partnered with SWOP Behind Bars, she was 26, fresh out of county jail, and still flinching when people said the word “future.” But her case manager noticed something in her intake packet: Nia had been writing her own legal motions from jail. She’d researched sentencing laws, appealed her probation violation, and written a support letter that helped another woman get released. “You ever think about becoming a paralegal?” the case manager asked.

Nia laughed. And then she cried. No one had ever asked her what she could become—only what she had done.

It wasn’t easy. The scholarship forms were long, and her PTSD made focusing a struggle. But for the first time, she had someone walking through the process with her—helping with paperwork, advocating with the school, believing she could do it. Now, she’s six months into her program, leading peer workshops in her reentry housing, and dreaming about law school. Not to prove herself. Just to keep helping women like her.

Nia didn’t need a savior. She needed someone to see her. She needed access to education. And she needed the chance to write a future no one else had imagined for her.

When people imagine what “freedom” looks like for trafficking survivors, they often picture a dramatic rescue or a courtroom triumph—handcuffs off, a predator jailed, a survivor walking into the sunlight. What rarely gets mentioned is what comes next: a hospital bill in someone else’s name, a transcript that doesn’t exist, a bank account that was never opened, a dream of becoming something more than a victim that gets buried under paperwork, poverty, and shame. And at the center of this often-invisible aftermath lies a glaring truth: access to education could have changed everything.

For many survivors of sex trafficking, especially those who were criminalized instead of supported, education is more than an opportunity—it’s a form of safety planning. A degree or vocational certificate can be the difference between returning to an exploitative situation or breaking the cycle entirely. Yet, time and again, survivors find themselves shut out of schools, programs, and scholarships—either because of their criminal records, their past involvement in sex work, or because they don’t fit the “ideal” narrative of victimhood.

Education is one of the few concrete tools that can reduce the risk of re-exploitation. Survivors who are able to return to school—whether to finish a GED, complete a college degree, or learn a trade—gain more than academic knowledge. They gain economic mobility, self-efficacy, a supportive peer community, and the tools to advocate for themselves in complex systems. Studies consistently show that financial insecurity is one of the primary drivers of trafficking and exploitation.

Survivors without access to income—especially those exiting jails, shelters, or unstable living environments—are at significant risk of being retrafficked. Education, especially when paired with housing and wraparound support, becomes a direct intervention against this risk.

But the barriers are everywhere.

Survivors attempting to reenter school face a minefield of institutional gatekeeping. College admissions often require transcripts that no longer exist or standardized test scores survivors were never in a position to earn. Many survivors have incomplete or inconsistent education histories due to exploitation, family estrangement, or child welfare involvement. They may have attended multiple schools across different states under different names—or been pulled from school entirely as minors. Others never finished high school at all.

Financial barriers are just as steep. Survivors often lack credit histories, tax returns, or parental information required for financial aid applications. For those who have been incarcerated, accessing Pell Grants or state-based aid can be difficult, even with recent federal reforms. And most scholarship applications don’t account for trauma, housing instability, or non-traditional student status. Survivors are told to write compelling essays about their “resilience” but penalized if they disclose too much about their criminal records, sex work, or non-linear paths.

Then there’s the stigma. Survivors returning to classrooms often report feeling hyper-visible, misunderstood, or tokenized. Some are treated like charity cases or asked to speak on panels before they’ve had time to process their own trauma. Others are told that they’re “too complicated,” “too unstable,” or “not ready.” This kind of policing is especially prevalent for survivors who don’t fit the mold—those who are trans, neurodivergent, Black or Indigenous, immigrants, or those who don’t disavow their pasts in neat, funder-friendly ways. When survivors assert agency—when they say they chose sex work, when they refuse to disown their survival tactics—they’re often excluded from educational support entirely.

This gatekeeping is not just frustrating. It is violent. It tells survivors that their futures are conditional—that access to education is a prize reserved for those who perform the “right” kind of pain in the “right” kind of way. It erases the complexity of their lives and perpetuates the very systems that failed them in the first place.

Education, when done right, is not just rehabilitative—it is protective. Trauma-informed education programs rooted in harm reduction and empowerment allow survivors to learn on their own terms. These programs validate lived experience as expertise. They account for the realities of single motherhood, chronic illness, PTSD, and poverty. They offer mentorship from peers, flexible deadlines, and hybrid learning models that meet people where they are—not where systems expect them to be.

We’ve seen this firsthand at SWOP Behind Bars. When a survivor enrolls in our paralegal scholarship program, they’re not just studying contracts and case law. They’re reclaiming power over the legal system that once labeled them a criminal. They’re writing their own narratives into history. They’re preparing to fight for others like them. And they’re doing it all while navigating parole, probation, trauma recovery, and reentry.

So here’s the truth anti-trafficking organizations need to grapple with: rescue without resources is just displacement.And labor without learning is exploitation in a new uniform.

If we truly care about ending trafficking, we must build programs that go beyond the rescue narrative. We must fund long-term educational access for survivors. We must remove barriers to college, GED completion, trade schools, and continuing education. We must write scholarship applications that include—not exclude—those with criminal records or non-traditional identities. We must treat education not as an optional service, but as a fundamental right and a central pillar of survivor stability.

Because education doesn’t just help survivors find jobs. It helps them find their voice. Their agency. Their future.

Closing the Chapter, Opening the Future

Education is more than a classroom, a test, or a diploma. For criminalized women, survivors, and sex workers, it’s a form of resistance. It’s a survival strategy. It’s a way to reclaim power in systems designed to keep us voiceless.

Throughout this series, we’ve challenged what education really looks like behind bars and beyond. We’ve named the barriers, lifted up the hustlers and healers, and made one thing clear: real learning starts when we stop gatekeeping and start listening.

At SWOP Behind Bars, we believe every woman—regardless of her past—deserves access to knowledge, support, and the tools to shape her own future.