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The Amara Legal Center provides free trauma-informed legal representation, access to support services, and advocacy for a more equitable legal system for individuals impacted by sex trafficking or involved in sex work in the District of Columbia, Maryland and Virginia. We envision a society where our clients are free from stigma, violence, oppression, exploitation, and criminalization. Amara is the only legal services organization in DC-metro area solely dedicated to providing trauma-informed services to survivors of sex trafficking. Amara has provided legal services in almost 800 case matters for over 500 clients since its founding in 2013. In 2020, our attorneys worked with 141 clients to address 171 case matters. We work closely with a range of DC-metro area service providers to offer an effective continuum of care for our clients.
Amara estimates that roughly 500 survivors of sex trafficking and sexual exploitation seek services in the DC-metro area annually, but we assume the number is much more since so many individuals are not identified as victims. Almost all survivors need legal services. Attorneys who work with survivors of sex trafficking must be trained in trauma-informed service provision for service delivery to be effective. Our legal services program for survivors of sex trafficking and sex workers include family law matters such as divorce and custody, civil protection orders, name and gender marker changes, victim-witness advocacy, expungement/vacatur and criminal record sealing.
In addition to providing legal services, Amara aims to expand its ability to provide low-income residents access to justice by providing training to professionals most likely to unknowingly come into contact with survivors; conducting community education and outreach through our existing school-based and social service partnerships; and expanding the availability of information about trafficking using social media channels and other communications tools in order to raise awareness and encourage individuals needing legal services to seek assistance. Professional training curricula is tailored to targeted industries, such as transportation, hospitality, restaurants, and to casino and stadium staff members. We also create training curricula for specific audiences, including social services organizations, medical professionals, law enforcement, court personnel, etc., and include information on how to identify a victim of sex trafficking, the need for trauma-informed approaches, the availability of trauma-informed legal services, and technical assistance around post-conviction relief laws and more.
Our community education events focus on understanding the signs of trafficking, identifying individuals who may be vulnerable to or a survivor of trafficking, survivors' legal rights, how to access services, and more. Amara's communications channels provide audience-appropriate information drawn from our curricula, as well as general information and statistics about trafficking. Combined, these training and outreach efforts are designed to empower low-income DC-metro area residents with increased access to legal services, and the knowledge and resources to combat potential traffickers recruiting in their communities.
Companies, like Uber, have played an important role in addressing sex trafficking by training its drivers on identifying possible sex trafficking victims. The Amara Legal Center would love to build a partnership with Uber that would help to support our mission, provide trauma-informed trainings to staff and drivers, and extend the compaby a seat on an Amara Corporate Advisory Council to continue dialogue with industry leaders on sex trafficking trands in the Dc-metro area.