Sex Trafficking Victims

Sex trafficking isn’t some far-off problem happening in shadowy corners of the world you’ll never visit. It’s here. In South Carolina. Right now. In one recent year alone, the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division (SLED) investigated 285 human trafficking tips across 40 of our 46 counties. A staggering 94% involved sex trafficking, and disturbingly, 315 of the 392 victims linked to these cases were children or youth.

If traffickers or the businesses that enabled them shattered your life or the life of someone you love, South Carolina law provides a path to fight back. You can pursue justice and compensation to help rebuild what was taken. It’s not about erasing the past, because nobody can do that. It’s about demanding accountability and securing the resources needed to move forward.

If you are ready to explore your legal options and hold the responsible parties accountable, contact Joye Law Firm Injury Lawyers today at (888) 324-3100 for a free, confidential consultation.

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Why Put Your Trust in Joye Law Firm Injury Lawyers?

When you’re facing the aftermath of something as violating as sex trafficking, choosing who stands beside you in the fight for justice is a massive decision. You need more than just legal representation; you need dedicated allies who grasp the gravity of your situation and possess the clout to make negligent parties pay attention. That’s where we come in. Since 1968, Joye Law Firm Injury Lawyers has been a fixture in South Carolina, committed to helping people navigate the absolute roughest patches life throws their way.

Our team brings over 300 years of combined litigation experience to the table. We don’t shy away from tough fights, and our track record reflects that. Recognition from peers and respected organizations like Best Lawyers®, South Carolina Super Lawyers®, and Martindale-Hubbell (with many attorneys holding the AV Preeminent® rating) further speaks to the quality of our legal practice.

We treat every person who walks through our doors with the compassion and respect they deserve, knowing they’re good people caught in deeply distressing circumstances. We’re here to listen, provide reliable guidance, and fight fiercely for the compensation you need to heal and rebuild. Don’t just take our word for it, hear from some of the tens of thousands of clients we’ve helped over the years.

Pathways to Compensation for Sex Trafficking Survivors

Seeking Compensation and Accountability After Sex Trafficking

Putting a price on experiencing the trauma of sex trafficking can feel cold and inadequate, but rebuilding a life costs money. Therapy isn’t free. Relocating might be necessary. Lost income needs to be replaced. Holding businesses that facilitated their crimes financially accountable is a powerful form of justice. South Carolina law recognizes this and allows survivors to seek various types of damages through civil lawsuits. Our team works meticulously to calculate the full extent of the harm you’ve suffered.

Economic Damages: The Tangible Costs

These are the straightforward, calculable financial losses directly resulting from being trafficked. Think of it as the bill for the wreckage left behind. This includes:

Medical and Therapy Expenses: Costs for treating physical injuries, sexually transmitted infections, psychological trauma (like PTSD, anxiety, depression), counseling, and ongoing rehabilitation.
Lost Income and Earning Capacity: Compensation for the wages you lost and potentially for the future income you’re unable to earn because of the lasting physical or psychological effects.
Relocation Costs: Funds to cover transportation, temporary housing, and childcare expenses.
Other Out-of-Pocket Expenses: Any other documented costs incurred as a direct result of the trafficking situation. An attorney will help you to define this catch-all phrase.

Non-Economic Damages: The Intangible Suffering

This category addresses the profound, non-monetary harm inflicted upon you. Putting a dollar figure on immense pain and suffering is inherently difficult, yet the law acknowledges that this suffering deserves recognition and compensation. This covers:

Pain and Suffering: Compensation for the physical pain and emotional anguish endured.
Emotional Distress: Addressing the deep psychological wounds, including trauma, fear, humiliation, and anxiety.
Loss of Enjoyment of Life: Recognizing how the experience has diminished your ability to participate in and enjoy daily activities, relationships, and hobbies.
Mental Anguish: Compensation for severe depression, PTSD, and other diagnosed mental health conditions stemming from the abuse.

Punitive Damages: Punishment and Deterrence

Sometimes, the actions of the traffickers or negligent businesses (like hotels or websites) are so egregious, so malicious, or show such a reckless disregard for human safety that the court may award punitive damages. These aren’t primarily about compensating you for your losses; they’re about punishing the wrongdoer and sending a clear message that such conduct will not be tolerated in our community. Under South Carolina Code § 16-3-2060(A), punitive damages are available. Furthermore, the statute mandates treble damages (three times the actual damages) if the defendant’s actions were proven to be “willful and malicious.” This signifies a serious intent to hold accountable those who profit from or knowingly enable this horrific exploitation.

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Where Exploitation Hides in Plain Sight: Trafficking in South Carolina

Forget the Hollywood image of trafficking happening solely in dark alleys or distant lands. In South Carolina, it often occurs right under our noses, frequently intersecting with legitimate businesses and public spaces. The 2024 SC Attorney General’s report highlights that hotels and motels are the top locations for sex trafficking investigations statewide. This isn’t shocking when you consider South Carolina’s position as a major transportation hub with interstates like I-95, I-85, I-26, and I-20 crisscrossing the state, facilitating the movement of traffickers and victims.

Statistics paint a grim picture. As mentioned earlier, in one recent year, SLED investigated hundreds of human trafficking tips, the vast majority involving sex trafficking. The top five counties for investigations in 2024 were Greenville (32), Richland (31), Charleston (31), Horry (22), and Berkeley (18). These aren’t just urban issues; trafficking occurs in smaller towns and rural areas too.

The fact that 80% of investigated tips in 2024 involved minors underscores the vulnerability of young people. Traffickers exploit various venues, including online platforms, illicit massage businesses, private residences, and even seemingly ordinary small businesses for human trafficking.

Understanding Sex Trafficking Claims and the Fight for Accountability

Making Sense of Sex Trafficking Claims Legally

A civil sex trafficking claim may seek to hold more than the direct trafficker accountable. Depending on the circumstances, individuals and businesses that knowingly benefited from or facilitated trafficking may also face liability.

Where Trafficking and Liability May Arise

Hotels and Motels: Hotels may face claims when trafficking occurs on their properties and there is evidence they knowingly benefited from it or ignored warning signs. Red flags may include frequent visitors to a room, visible injuries, extended cash-paid stays, refusal of housekeeping, or suspicious staff involvement.
Transportation Hubs: Truck stops, bus stations, and similar locations may facilitate the movement of victims.
Online Platforms: Websites and apps may be used to recruit, groom, advertise, or exploit victims.
Massage and Spa Businesses: Illicit operations may use legitimate-looking businesses as fronts for commercial sex.
Residential Properties: Apartments and houses may be used to hold or exploit victims.
Bars and Clubs: Some establishments may become locations for recruitment or facilitating commercial sex.

The Harm Trafficking Can Cause

The effects of trafficking can continue long after the exploitation ends. Survivors may experience:

Physical Injuries: Assault-related injuries, sexually transmitted infections, reproductive health problems, and other physical harm.
Psychological Trauma: PTSD, complex PTSD, anxiety, depression, suicidal ideation, dissociation, and difficulty trusting others.
Financial Harm: Debt bondage, lost income, inability to work, and loss of assets.
Social Isolation: Damaged relationships, stigma, and difficulty reintegrating into everyday life.
Substance Abuse: Drugs or alcohol may be forced upon victims or later used as a way of coping with trauma.

South Carolina Laws That May Apply

South Carolina’s Human Trafficking Act, including S.C. Code § 16-3-2060, gives trafficking survivors the right to pursue civil claims and seek actual, compensatory, and punitive damages, as well as attorney’s fees and costs for prevailing plaintiffs. The law also provides for treble damages for certain willful and malicious conduct.

The law recognizes that survivors may need additional time to come forward. For minors, the limitations period does not begin until age 18, and the statute may also be suspended in certain circumstances when the effects of trafficking prevented a survivor from reasonably discovering the right to bring a claim.

Depending on the circumstances, other legal theories may also apply. Premises liability may become relevant when a property owner fails to take reasonable measures concerning foreseeable criminal activity, while negligence claims may arise when a person or business owed a duty, breached that duty, and caused harm as a result.

Emotional portrait of abused, crying, beautiful, young, Caucasian woman in underwear - violence concept

Battling Traffickers and the Businesses That Enable Them

Taking legal action after sex trafficking may involve more than pursuing the person who directly committed the abuse. Trafficking can also be facilitated by businesses or other entities that benefited from the exploitation, ignored warning signs, or otherwise played a role in allowing it to continue.

Claims against hotels, online platforms, property owners, and other corporate entities can be particularly challenging. These defendants may have significant resources and experienced legal teams dedicated to limiting their responsibility. Building a case may require investigating what the business knew, what warning signs existed, how it responded, whether it benefited from the activity, and what role its actions or failures played in allowing the trafficking to continue.

Tactics Survivors May Encounter

Businesses and other defendants may use several strategies to challenge a trafficking claim, including:

Denying Knowledge: Arguing they did not know trafficking was occurring despite evidence of potential warning signs.
Blaming the Survivor: Attempting to shift responsibility to the victim while minimizing the force, fraud, coercion, or exploitation involved.
Minimizing Their Role: Claiming they were simply a third party with little or no control over the trafficker’s actions. A hotel franchisor, for example, may attempt to distance itself from the conduct of a franchisee.
Delaying the Case: Using procedural challenges and other legal tactics that can extend litigation and increase the emotional or financial strain on a survivor.
Using Extensive Legal Resources: Corporate defendants may employ large legal teams and aggressively challenge evidence, allegations, and legal arguments.
Pointing to the Trafficker: Arguing that the direct trafficker bears sole responsibility in an effort to distance the business from its own alleged conduct.

These defenses are one reason trafficking cases can require extensive investigation. Evidence such as business records, employee testimony, communications, surveillance footage, prior complaints, and other documentation may help establish what happened and determine which parties may bear responsibility.

How Joye Law Firm Injury Lawyers Fights Back for You:

Confronting these tactics requires a strategic, aggressive, and well-resourced approach. Here’s how our team levels the playing field:

Thorough Investigation: We dig deep. This involves gathering evidence like police reports, witness statements (from staff, other guests, etc.), electronic records, financial transactions, and internal company documents to expose what really happened and who knew what.
Identifying All Liable Parties: We look beyond the obvious trafficker to identify all individuals and corporate entities whose actions or inactions contributed to the trafficking. This could include hotel owners, operators, franchisors, managers, websites, transportation companies, or any business that knowingly benefited financially.
Leveraging Legal Discovery: We use subpoenas, depositions (sworn questioning), and requests for documents to compel defendants to reveal information they might prefer to hide, such as internal policies (or lack thereof), incident reports, staff training records, and communications about suspected trafficking.
Demonstrating Negligence or Complicity: We build a case showing that a business either knew or should have known about the trafficking based on obvious signs, yet failed to act reasonably (negligence), or that they knowingly participated in or profited from the trafficking venture (complicity under laws like TVPRA or S.C. Code § 16-3-2020).
Expert Consultation: We may work with experts in hotel security, psychology, economics, and trafficking dynamics to strengthen your case and counter defense arguments.
Relentless Advocacy: We prepare every case as if it’s going to trial. Our reputation for being willing and able to take cases to court often encourages more favorable settlement negotiations, but we won’t hesitate to present your case to a judge and jury if that’s what it takes to achieve justice.

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Carolina Paw Project

Featured Story: Carolina Paw Project

At Joye Law Firm Injury Lawyers, caring for our community also means caring for the animals who share it with us. That’s why we are proud to have started the Carolina Paw Project, an initiative dedicated to helping reduce pet overpopulation and supporting animal welfare organizations across South Carolina. Started in 2025 as the Charleston Paw Project, the program expand to the entire state in 2026.

Through partnerships with local shelters and animal welfare organizations, the Carolina Paw Project will fund 100 spay and neuter surgeries for dogs and cats for families who may otherwise struggle to afford this important care. By removing financial barriers, the program helps keep pets healthy, prevents unwanted litters, and reduces the number of animals entering overcrowded shelters.

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At Joye Law Firm Injury Lawyers, we believe in giving back to our community and making a positive impact on the lives of those who need it most. In 2025, we were honored with the South Carolina Governor’s Business Volunteer Group of the Year Award for the work we do with Landmarks for Family (formerly known as Carolina Youth Development Center), which provides programs that reach at-risk children, youth, and their families.

Since 2017, we’ve been proud to host an annual End of Summer Party to celebrate the changing of the season and the beginning of a new school year. The event is highlighted with fun-filled activities and lasting memories with everything from inflatable jumbo water slides, art & crafts, all-you-can-eat ice cream truck, and DJ to a campus-wide jellyball tournament.

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At Joye Law Firm Injury Lawyers, we believe education has the power to change lives and strengthen communities. For two decades, our scholarship program has been dedicated to supporting hardworking South Carolina students who are pursuing their dreams through higher education.

This year marks the 20th anniversary of the Joye Law Firm Scholarship Program, and we are proud to celebrate this milestone by awarding $20,000 in scholarships to deserving students across the state. Since launching the program, we have had the privilege of supporting students who demonstrate academic achievement, leadership, and a commitment to making a positive impact in their communities.

Joye Law Annual Scholarship Program

We are committed to helping others and giving back to the communities we serve. Among the ways, we show our commitment to community service is the Joye Law Annual Scholarship Program, which provides seven $2,000 scholarships to South Carolina high school seniors…

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Carolina Paw Project

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Celebrates 20 Years of Opportunity

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Joye Law Annual Scholarship Program

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