Ohio offers funds for trafficking victims to erase “permanent reminders”

Ohio is offering grant money to human trafficking victims so that permanent reminders of their imprisonment and pain can be removed.

According to 10TV, Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost will be awarding $10,000 grants for survivors to get tattoos or brands that identified them as someone’s property removed or covered up.

“The journey of a survivor out of slavery and addiction and trauma is hard enough without a permanent reminder that literally is part of your skin,” Yost said in a written statement Thursday, per The Dayton Daily News. ““These grants will enable women to leave behind the brand that identified them as someone else’s property.”

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The grant program will be named after Jennifer Kempton, who survived human trafficking and went on to found Survivor’s Ink that offers cover-up tattoos or removal services for brandings and/or scars people received while being trafficked.

The grants will be awarded to local nonprofits that focus on human trafficking, reports 10TV.

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