Sex Trafficking Victim Sara Kruzan Wins Commuted Sentence

At 16, Sara Kruzan was sentenced to life in prison without the chance of parole for killing the man who enslaved and sold her for rape as a child. This extreme sentence attracted the attention of women's rights and anti-trafficking advocates, including tens of thousands of Change.org members who called in the past few months for California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to commute Sara's sentence with her 16 years of time served. Amanda Kloer reports on End Human Trafficking that Schwarzenegger came through and commuted Sara's sentence to 25 years with the possibility for parole.

Though advocates were hoping for Sara's freedom to come immediately, given that now she has spent half her life behind bars, and longer than that as a prisoner or slave, this victory nonetheless comes as a monumental success. Life without parole meant that Sara never had any chance of living outside of prison walls, despite the fact that Sara showed swift remorse for her crime of desperation and doesn't pose a threat to public safety. Now, though the date at which Sara will again taste freedom is not yet certain (her legal team is deciding on next steps), her sentences provides not just a chance, but a likelihood that she will be able to return to a free life again.

It is disappointing that Schwarzenegger decided to deny a woman who was enslaved and repeatedly sold for rape as a 13-year-old and committed her crime to escape her trafficker while only 16, at a time at which the courts had less understanding than they do now of how an abuse victim's mental state is impacted. Clearly, it demonstrates a need for continued awareness and education about the impact of sex trafficking and rape on victims. Sara Kruzan was poorly served by the American system, which failed to protect her from becoming a child sex trafficking victim, raped on a regularly basis, and then treated as a hardened criminal for acting out of self-preservation against the true criminal, her enslaver, her pimp.

But for Sara Kruzan herself, this is a happy day. Thanks to the extraordinary efforts of activists and anti-trafficking advocates like yourself, Sara can expect to be free again one day, something that had seemed too much to hope for previously. It's a happy new year indeed.

Photo credit: Matt Reinbold

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