Carissa Phelps joins Dr. Sandie Morgan as they discuss an unprecedented opportunity for trafficking survivors to access $215 million in remission funds from the Backpage settlement, with a critical February 2026 deadline that could finally put survivors ahead of their traffickers for the first time in movement history.
Carissa Phelps
Carissa Phelps is a licensed attorney, author, and survivor advocate who founded Runaway Girl, Inc., a social purpose corporation providing survivor-led experiential trainings nationwide. She earned both a Juris Doctor and MBA from UCLA in 2007 and holds a B.A. in Mathematics from California State University, Fresno. As a pioneer in survivor-led advocacy, Carissa has spent nearly two decades empowering communities and amplifying survivor voices through innovative strategies. She is the author of the acclaimed memoir “Runaway Girl: Escaping Life on the Streets, One Helping Hand at a Time” and co-producer of the award-winning documentary “Carissa,” both powerful tools used worldwide for education and training on child exploitation and trafficking.
Key Points
- The Backpage remission fund represents $215 million available to trafficking survivors who were exploited on Backpage.com (2004-2018) and CityXGuide.com (2018-2020), marking the largest victim compensation fund in trafficking history.
- Unlike previous restitution processes that required court appearances, this remission process uses a third-party administrator, removing the traumatic requirement for survivors to face their traffickers in court.
- The February 2, 2026 deadline creates urgency for outreach, as many survivors remain unaware of this opportunity and the application process requires documentation of trafficking and economic losses.
- Survivors First community was formed as a working group under Love Never Fails Us to conduct weekly webinars, provide step-by-step guidance, and connect survivors with pro bono legal assistance and medical providers.
- The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) has partnered with over 15 major law firms to provide free, trauma-informed legal representation to help survivors navigate the application process.
- Economic losses are calculated at federal minimum wage for a 40-hour work week during the trafficking period, though survivors can request higher amounts with proper documentation of different wages or hours.
- This funding opportunity represents a chance for the anti-trafficking movement to get ahead of traffickers for the first time, particularly as new technologies like Web3 and blockchain create new frontiers for both exploitation and prevention.
Resources
Transcript
[00:00:00] Carissa Phelps: for the first time, for the first time in the history of this movement, we have an opportunity to get ahead of traffickers.
[00:00:08] Sandie Morgan: Right now, $215 million is waiting for trafficking survivors. This is money that most survivors don’t even know exists. The deadline is February 2nd, 2026.The legal system is finally learned from mistakes. There’s no court required here. Victims don’t have to face their traffickers to apply for this funding. It’s a pathway to justice.
[00:00:45] I am Dr. Sandy Morgan from the Global Center for Women and Justice at Vanguard University. And my guest is Carissa Phelps.
[00:00:57] She’s an attorney, a survivor advocate, founder of Runaway Girl Inc. And she is leading the charge to connect survivors with the back page remission fund. Let’s join our conversation.
[00:01:16]
[00:01:22] Sandie Morgan: Okay, so Carissa Phelps, welcome to the Ending Human Trafficking Podcast. I have looked back at our history, and the last time you were here was 14 years ago.
[00:01:37] Carissa Phelps: Oh my goodness.
[00:01:38] Sandie Morgan: Wow. Listeners, if you wanna hear that interview, it’s number 19. So welcome Carissa.
[00:01:46] Carissa Phelps: Thank you. Thank you, Sandy. Thanks for
[00:01:48] Sandie Morgan: having me on.
[00:01:49] So what have you been doing since we talked last?
[00:01:53] Carissa Phelps: So, catching up, I guess. I mean that’s over a decade of work, but we built Runaway Girl as a flexible purpose corporation, so a social purpose corporation. We went out with full force. We had. Prop 35 in that timeframe to come out with a historic support for, more penalties for trafficking that saw increased prosecutions for sex trafficking, especially of minors.
[00:02:18] And we’ve been in a uphill battle in terms of getting survivors into leadership positions. But that’s happening now more and more. It’s expected for survivors to not just be at the table or in the room or. Subject of the conversation, but to be part of the conversation in developing services and reaching victims where they’re at, and survivors where they’re at.
[00:02:43] And so this has been, it’s been an exciting decade and a half.
[00:02:47] Sandie Morgan: Wow. And I just am happy to report to you that the very first human trafficking victim rescued in Orange County, Shaima Hall, who was an Egyptian child, made in an upscale neighborhood, is now serving on the Global Center for Women in Justice Advisory Board.
[00:03:11] Wonderful. Wonderful. Yeah, so we’re trying to practice what you are teaching us as a leading survivor advocate. So I got really excited a couple weeks ago when I saw your post about Nick Meck remission, and when we’re talking about survivor-centered justice, why is that? Important. And for listeners just joining this conversation, NCMEC is the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.
[00:03:45] Carissa Phelps: So I did, I posted, my friends at ncmec National Center for Missing Exploited Children are doing something similar to what we’ll talk about with survivors first, but we are all trying to. Respond to this back page. Remission, which is an historic amount of funds
[00:04:01] available for survivors of trafficking that were trafficked over 20 years ago, some of them, from 2004 when Backpage was prominent, to 2018, 2004 to 2018, when backpage.com existed and served traffickers really and served buyers and.
[00:04:22] Was a means of exploiting victims, rampantly all over our country, all over the world, really all over the globe. And so there were so many victims out of that website. It was finally shut down, with the help of Maggie Krell, who was at the Attorney General’s office in California and others in US Attorney in Arizona, Kevin Rapp, and like there, there were so many people that stepped up to the plate to say this was wrong.
[00:04:46] this went even beyond maybe what Craigslist was doing in terms of, just, uh, catering to traffickers in, in what they were posting. So they were, assets were seized in that effort and those assets are now available. Two victims of trafficking. There was a settlement reached in 2024 with the company, and so some of the funds did go back to the company owners and so that that can be resolved in civil suits and other ways.
[00:05:15] But this 215 million has been made available in a victim restitution fund. For victims to come forward to show that they have losses, economic losses, so lost wages, lost time that they could have been working or doing something else when they were being trafficked. And also medical costs and other costs that they would’ve incurred while being trafficked.
[00:05:37] Sandie Morgan: So, Carissa, one of the things that was so inspiring when I first met you is you did a double grad program so that you have an MBA and you’re an attorney. So break this down for us. What are you talking about with remission and, asset forfeiture. Tell me about that.
[00:06:01] Carissa Phelps: So anytime somebody uses their assets to commit a crime or takes or steals things from people fraudulently their money or their assets, that those assets could be seized and forfeited to the government.
[00:06:19] And if they’re prosecuted, criminally prosecuted, they first be seized and then they would be forfeited. So that happened. It happened with City X Guide in 2021. There was actually a restitution process for victims in 2021 and a $15 million fund, and nobody really learned about it. It was not as well advertised potentially, or people didn’t get the word out, and maybe because it wasn’t as large of a fund, but that $15 million, if it’s not accessed by victims, it doesn’t it, it didn’t disappear.
[00:06:55] Fortunately, it’s coming into this fund. But it’s now a remission process, which is different than a restitution process. A victim restitution process is sort of during the criminal trial and before sentencing, somebody could come in and put in a restitution form and say, I’m due this money because I was a victim of this crime.
[00:07:14] And the Texas, the US attorney in Texas did make that process available with the City X Guide, person being prosecuted. Marona was his name. He was prosecuted. He ended up being sentenced and victims had a chance to go and to give a victim impact statement and to also apply for these funds as a restitution.
[00:07:35] But what happened is that the word probably didn’t get out wide enough. There weren’t enough. There wasn’t enough support maybe for victims to get this fund in. It’s a scary thing to go to court. And ask for anything, especially if you’ve been victimized more recently. Mm-hmm. And the victimization with that was between 2018 and 2020.
[00:07:54] And so you’re asking in 2021 really early stage people who are coming out of victimization to come and try to get funds. It wasn’t happening and it didn’t happen. So now when the back page settlement was reached in 2024 after a criminal conviction of one of the. One of the founders, one of the CEOs of, of that organization, there was this $215 million settlement.
[00:08:20] And so these funds have now been combined by the DOJ and their money laundering, department to create a process that looks similar to the one in 2021. But is run by a program, called Epic. They’re epic global, so they’re the administrator. And so now we’re not going to court to get this money. We’re basically going to a middle person between the victim and survivor and the DOJ and submitting documentation that would be proof of the trafficking, that it happened during the time period, that there’s a remission time period of 2004 to 2018.
[00:08:59] 2008 for back page 2018 to 2020 for City X Guide. And so you’d have to show some sort of proof that there was some trafficking that happened during that period with those websites, sex trafficking particularly, and then also claim lost the lost wages for that time. Much like the Cal, the California has a crime victims’ compensation fund.
[00:09:25] Yeah. Claim lost wages. And it would be calculated at minimum wage, federal minimum wage at that time, unless there could be a way of showing that there was a different wage amount, unless there could be a way of showing that there were different hours worked. It would be 40 hour work week. one of the things that we’re doing, we could talk about, you know, whether there’s really truly a work week when somebody’s being trafficked, right?
[00:09:47] Yeah, yeah. Um,
[00:09:49] Sandie Morgan: over time. But
[00:09:50] Carissa Phelps: there’s, there’s this process now set up that we don’t have to go to court. We’re going to a third party administrator with documentation proving the trafficking and a lawyer doing that with a, with a survivor, with a, with a victim of, of this, which we’ll call a claimant. Now, a claimant on this form is important.
[00:10:12] I think it really is important. it’s not a complicated process where you have to peer in front of court, but it’s still a lengthy application and it requires some proof,
[00:10:21] Sandie Morgan: so. When we talk about being survivor centered justice, the first time there was restitution funding available, not many applied, and it’s a scary process.
[00:10:38] So this particular model now. Means that the survivor doesn’t have to go back to court. That’s a big deal that recognizes it’s more trauma informed. So as I look at the information on this, the deadline is coming up February, 2026. Yeah. So what are the practical steps that survivors and our communities need to take?
[00:11:08] So this doesn’t get left on the table.
[00:11:11] Carissa Phelps: Thank you so much for asking that. And February 2nd, 2026. So I’m only thinking, oh my goodness. Deadline as January. January,
[00:11:18] Sandie Morgan: okay. January is our
[00:11:19] Carissa Phelps: deadline if you really think about it. And then you have the holidays in between. So it is a very tight deadline. it’s one of my first requests.
[00:11:26] As soon as I get a meeting with the DOJ, which I anticipate we will, survivors first will be meeting with them. Is, can we get some equitable relief, some fairness here about, you know, we were looking at populations that are inaccessible. They’re in jail, they’re in hospitals, potentially they’re not, they’re incapacitated.
[00:11:43] We have deceased survivors and victims. Their families have to get a state set up to make the claim. So we do have some, some fairness here about getting an extension. We don’t anticipate it. We’re not going to plan for it. We’re gonna plan for no extension and do the best we can with every application that.
[00:12:02] In my case, I’m trying to do about 500 applications myself. I know other lawyers who have hundreds or thousands of them, so we’re anticipating, you know, tens of thousands potentially applications going in. this means that the funds that will be received per person may be pro rata down from what they’re requesting.
[00:12:25] So we’re really encouraging everybody to request the full amount that they can legitimately request.because we do anticipate if we exhaust the fund, it will be, it will be pro ratta down. so yes, it, it is a lot to set up, the groups that we really need to have at the table, like you mentioned, ncmec, ncms, backpage remission network.org got launched.
[00:12:48] Yoda Sous, who’s over there, has been in this fight for a very long time, and I’m very happy that she’s at the table doing this. I hope you have her on a, as a guest as well, because I’ll
[00:12:57] Sandie Morgan: make a note for sure. About
[00:12:58] Carissa Phelps: enough, right? Mm-hmm. Um, me and Melissa Snow and others at at ncmec are making this a priority.
[00:13:04] They already work with law firms, so they have a, you know, over a dozen law firms who have committed pro bono to assist in this application process. To assist survivors and just very, very narrowly assist with the application process. And then also they have connection and relationship with people they trust in the therapy field, in the medical field.
[00:13:29] And so they’re, they’re connecting those two groups up to help streamline the process of getting the applications done. survivors first is doing it a little bit differently. And we’re doing it differently because we wanna see when survivors come in the door that they have the option to maybe even start their services.
[00:13:47] So,
[00:13:47] Sandie Morgan: let’s stop for a second here. Yeah. And tell me what is Survivors first and what is the agenda there?
[00:13:56] Carissa Phelps: Yeah. So Survivors First is it. It is a working group that was formed other, it’s Under Love Never Fails us. Love Never Fails Us, is a nonprofit. That helps to empower survivor voice.
[00:14:10] So Vanessa Russell, who founded Love Never Fails us. Mm-hmm. Reached out to me when she heard of the deadline. I was actually on an international flight when it came out on July 31st. And she reached out to me and I just immediately went into action. I had a, me a meeting with 25 of very close friends, allies in the survivor space, um, attorneys, doctors, people who would talk to me right away, um, from Spain.
[00:14:34] I had this meeting. I said, let’s, we have, we have to get this done. And so we began meeting, we planned a weekly webinar where every week, Wednesday at 1:00 PM PST, we’re getting people on air talking about. what’s going on with the application process? What’s going on with the remission process, how we can give, um, sort of step-by-step guide to victims and survivors and those who are supporting them, because not every claimant is gonna have an attorney.
[00:15:02] So we know that human trafficking advocates are also gonna be helping walk survivors through this form, that some people will not have legal assistance, even though there is the pro bono legal assistance through ncmec, we hope. That everyone has legal assistance, but we don’t think everyone will end up with legal assistance.
[00:15:20] So to give people sort of a guide of what to expect, even what if, what to expect even before they go and see a lawyer, if they’d like to think it through. Some people are not sure if they want to do this right? They want more information first. So we’re speaking to survivors, we’re speaking to experts.
[00:15:35] We’re speaking to the providers to try to get together and share resources. And as quickly as possible, cut through the red tape and really empower all the allies and attorneys and medical providers who are out there so that we have strong C claims built for this, for the claimants, for those survivors.
[00:15:56] So
[00:15:56] Sandie Morgan: time is of the essence. Time, right? Time is of the essence. So if you’re listening to this conversation with Carissa, you need to share this podcast with your survivor network. Even with your anti-trafficking network and engage more survivors, because there are people that we haven’t been able to reach with this message.
[00:16:23] And the internet is a common denominator for many of us. Let’s use it for good here.
[00:16:31] Carissa Phelps: Yes. And that is one of our key reasons for forming, was just raising the awareness, raising the awareness. Hosting these weekly talks with survivors and then also with the providers, all about getting the information out there, lowering the barriers that exist.
[00:16:46] Because some people don’t have computers. They don’t have the ability even to apply. It’s a difficult application. You can’t do it on your phone in one sitting. I’m not saying don’t do that. If that’s your only way to do it and get it done, then get it done, get it done by the deadline for certain. but I just, I really, I believe that there’s, there’s this.
[00:17:05] Gap in understanding that this is for you. A lot of victims will think, well, I didn’t have a prosecution. I didn’t testify against the trafficker When the prosecutor asked me to, maybe I don’t have a claim. No, you still have a claim. It doesn’t mean you don’t have a claim. You can still have a claim, a valid claim if you were trafficked on this site, didn’t have to be proven in court.
[00:17:27] It didn’t have to be something that you had to cooperate with. Law enforcement. This is not court. You’re not going to court. I do suggest trying to get attorney and attorney representation. There are some attorneys that are signing up cases for a contingency fee and even those attorneys we’re working with them.
[00:17:43] I understand that model. I work under that model. So we’re working with them to help try to lower the costs that would go to survivors. It would come out of their portion. So we wanna make sure providers are available for those survivors through grant funds, through other means to come up with help for those applications to make them the strongest that they can be without incurring costs to a survivor.
[00:18:06] Sandie Morgan: So how do people contact survivors first?
[00:18:11] Carissa Phelps: So Survivors First community is our website. We’re also on Love Never fails.com. Love never fails us.com. Under their events tab, we have a webinar link there. at Survivors First Do Community, you’ll find information about the remission process, our webinar links and our resource form so that providers can sign up and share their information, tell us how they wanna be involved, tell us where they wanna be involved.
[00:18:40] Tell us their background and experience. We are asking that people have at least one year, 12 months of experience when they sign up. if they’re a provider with something that is trafficking directly related to trafficking, human trafficking and training in that area. we do have some time to train people and some experts who are out there will support.
[00:19:00] Specialists because we do need some specialists at times that maybe don’t have training in trafficking might be a dental issue, it might be an, an ocular or ophthalmology issue, could be a skin or dermatology issue. And we, and we, we need those experts too. Those people. To help with treatment plans, but we’d want them working alongside of somebody who has that experience.
[00:19:21] Sandie Morgan: So getting this message out is important not just to the survivors, but also to our legal community. Yes. And I started thinking when you first started talking about all the survivors in my world. And how I’m going to share this with them. And now where I am starting to make my next list is all the attorneys and judges and, advocates in the legal system that will be critical for us to meet that 2nd of February deadline.
[00:19:56] I’m with you. I’m gonna just say January 31st. Yeah,
[00:20:00] Carissa Phelps: yeah,
[00:20:00] We will also have a toolkit we’re building for survivors. So I’m working alongside Felicia Rosario, and maybe you have us both on it sometime, but, or she’s. She’s a medically trained, doctor, so she’s medically trained.
[00:20:12] She has a md, she’s Dr. Rosario. She’s amazing, and she’s not able to issue the treatment plans necessarily, but she’ll work right alongside of doctors and helping them understand medical codes and right alongside survivors to help them understand how to care for themselves, what to ask for, how to advocate to get their treatment that they need, and they deserve.
[00:20:33] A lot of survivors don’t, don’t necessarily understand the connection between something like. An autoimmune disorder later in life. And the stress that they, that they had, strangulation has come up. Things that dental issues have come up that could have been caused by trafficking or excessive drug use that was, that was forced upon them during the trafficking.
[00:20:53] So all these things are things that we can address. tattoo removal, those types of. Scars, tattoos, skin infections, things like that, that would require dermatology. There’s, a
[00:21:04] wonderful app that I’ll share with you as one of the links that, Dr. Shady Roche has come up with that links providers who have training and trafficking and also skin related trafficking issues that are available because of her work at Harvard.
[00:21:19] So there’s there. These resources are out there. That’s the exciting thing, Sandy, I don’t think 14 years ago we could have said this. No, we would’ve been scrambling in the dark for something, and I know these resources are out there. I hope that these listeners, the listeners that you have that are so faithful, the listeners that you have.
[00:21:34] We’ll sign up on the form both on Backpage, remission network.org, and then also with Survivors First Community. This is a global message, but we really are trying to activate people locally because we know survivors if they hear this message in their own community. That it’ll be more real. We want this to be real.
[00:21:54] We want it not just this to be a headline in the news they see, but something that is real and actionable.
[00:21:59] Sandie Morgan: I am so excited that as the ending human trafficking podcast community, we get to be front and center to watch. As you lead this survivor-centered initiative, um, what I’d really also like to ask, just because I know we’re gonna have more conversations, but as we lead up to that after February 2nd, what are you looking for in initiatives like Survivor First and shaping the future of our anti-trafficking efforts?
[00:22:39] Carissa Phelps: Well, you can, I mean, you can just give me chills right now because I mean the work that we need to do to get ahead of traffickers, like for the first time, for the first time in the history of this movement, we have an opportunity to get ahead of traffickers. If we don’t take it, it is on us. So Web3 is here, Web3 is coming.
[00:23:00] It’s here. Blockchain. All this new technology is available, and it is a new frontier, a new world that if we don’t learn and become a part of, then we will have handed it over to traffickers. Once again, like we did with Web 2.0, we will have handed it over and we cannot do that. We can’t stand by while it’s done.
[00:23:21] We cannot allow it to happen. We need to get educated and out in front of it. That doesn’t mean by shutting down innovation, that means by being the greatest innovators. That means by being the best innovators, let’s not wait. For people to harm our children before we create tools like Bark or tools that help to regulate their use online, their usage online, and who accesses them, right?
[00:23:42] Let’s do this ahead of time. So that’s what I’m calling out to everybody, and that will be my sort of battle cry as I go forward after February 2nd.
[00:23:51] Sandie Morgan: Oh my goodness. I am so inspired. I can’t wait to join your team. before I sign off, I want you to tell me about the books in the background of your screen.
[00:24:02] Carissa Phelps: Okay. So, um, in human trafficking, so I worked some of that time during our, during from. 2019, I filed my first case against, 15 defendants, a whole host of hotels, motels, and then also, Craigslist. So my client was this amazing, very brave client who had been trafficked as a minor, and she stood up and to, to those individuals, to those hotels, and to the.
[00:24:30] One of them being Motel six, G six, one of them being, Craigslist. And she, we fought, we fought all the way to the Ninth Circuit. And unfortunately, I’ll tell you my new book that I’m working on that’s gonna take up the next base over here is gonna be called Bad Law because I don’t think that the ninth Circuit got it right when they reviewed our case.
[00:24:49] Um, there are other cases who were argued alongside of me that continue to fight. My client was, was sort of done and reached a, a resolution, that was agreeable for both parties and so I was just so proud of her for fighting. I worked for, um. Mike Papao and Leven Papao Rafferty when I was doing that, and he was writing his book in human trafficking at that time and became a huge ally and friend to the world of, of anti-trafficking.
[00:25:15] He supported my work in filing multiple lawsuits, creating a whole department at l Papao Rafferty, and at his conference or their conference, really mass torts, made perfect. That is in Las Vegas that reaches so many attorneys, thousands of attorneys around the world. Really. And so this has been, a fight that l and Papa has been in, and I’m in their studio and this is his book.
[00:25:38] Oh. So that’s what’s, what’s Behind Me. Oh, I love that. And then Michael Book, runaway Girl. And, one of my colleagues from here, from the office had a copy and brought it in. So my book that, I am so proud of, but came out in 2012, so not, not long after we had met, it was coming out. it’s due for not just an update, but also, like I said, I have a whole nother book, not just another chapter that I’ve lived in the last decade and a half.
[00:26:02] So that will be the next book that will be, that’ll be the next book that I come out with, and I’m excited about.
[00:26:08] Sandie Morgan: Carissa, you are an inspiring survivor leader, and I wanna be an ally and bring a community of allies to sign on. Go to your website. We’ll put all the links in our show notes for everybody.
[00:26:27] Thank you so much for being with me today. Thank you.
[00:26:30] Carissa Phelps: Thank you. Thank you.
[00:26:32] Speaker 6: thank you to Carissa Phelps. This episode, this conversation really showed survivor-centered justice and it’s happening right now. We can’t let that $250 million sit there unclaimed share this episode, the deadline. February 2nd, 2026. This is a wake up call for a movement beyond the deadline. How are we going to promote survivor centered justice?
[00:27:07] If this is your first episode of the Ending Human Trafficking Podcast, go to our website, ending human trafficking.org. You’ll find show notes, tons of resources
[00:27:22] and of course you can listen to past episodes, for instance. Carissa Phelps was on the podcast in our first year, episode number 19, and if you’d like to help us grow the podcast, please connect on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn.
[00:27:44] Thank you for listening.
[00:27:46]
