Rights4Girls

Background

Rights4Girls is an advocacy organization focused on ending gender-based violence and exploitation against girls. It claims that girls who are sexually exploited are often treated as criminals but should be considered victims. ¹ It was founded in 2011 by attorneys and advocates to support girls impacted by violence and exploitation through research, education, and advocacy. ²

Rights4Girls is a fiscally sponsored project of the Tides Center, ³ a left-of-center nonprofit organization created to manage the fiscal sponsorship services of the Tides Foundation. ^{4  5}

Work Areas

Rights4Girls advocates for policies that protect girls from sexual abuse, sex-trafficking, family violence, and sexual exploitation. It advocates for alternatives to prison for girls involved in the sex trade, claiming that they are victims rather than criminals, and for improved conditions for those who are imprisoned. ⁶

Rights4Girls trains judges, attorneys, child-welfare professionals, educators, and communities on federal and state laws, identifying trafficked youth, and alternatives to detention. It partnered with the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges to launch the National Judicial Institute on Domestic Child Sex Trafficking and created the National Multi-Disciplinary Institute on Child Sex Trafficking. ⁷

Rights4Girls conducts research and produces reports and fact sheets on topics including sexual abuse as a pathway to incarceration, child sex trafficking, racial and gender disparities related to sexual abuse and criminalization, harmful conditions while in prison, and advocating for reforms that treat exploited girls as victims rather than criminals. ⁸

In its publication Criminalized Survivors: Today’s Abuse to Prison Pipeline for Girls, co-published with Georgetown University Law School, Rights4Girls called for ending sexual assault and abuse, decriminalizing girls who have been sexually abused, holding law enforcement accountable for disregarding claims of abuse, and addressing the “disproportionately high rates of sexual abuse against girls with intersectional identities.” ⁹

Campaigns

The No Such Thing campaign was launched in 2015 to communicate that “there is no such thing as a “child prostitute” – there are only victims and survivors of child rape.” The campaign aims to eliminate the use of the term “child prostitute” by media outlets and in the law. ^{10  11} The Associated Press has recommended that the word “prostitute” not be used when a child is involved. ¹²

The Sex Buying Isn’t a Game campaign leverages billboards at locations hosting major sporting events, including the NCAA basketball championship tournament, NASCAR races, the NFL Draft, the Kentucky Derby, the MLB All-Star Game, and the FIFA World Cup. ¹³ The organization claims that sex trafficking occurrences increase around major sporting events. ¹⁴

Coalitions and Partnerships

Rights4Girls is a member of several regional and national coalitions that support gender equity, sexual violence prevention and survivor support, juvenile justice and youth-law changes, and anti-trafficking and exploitation prevention. These include ACT 4 Juvenile Justice, the National Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Coalition, and the End Online Sexual Exploitation and Abuse of Children Coalition. It founded the Girls at the Margin National Alliance, co-founded the DC Girls’ Coalition, and is a founding co-chair of World Without Exploitation. ¹⁵

It partners with several organizations with similar focus areas, including the Association of Feminists Fighting Fascism, Imperialism, Refeudalization, and Marginalization (AF3IRM), the Center for Justice Innovation, My Life My Choice, the National Center for Youth Law, and the Young Women’s Christian Association (YWCA). ¹⁶

Leadership

As of 2026, Rights4Girls co-founder Yasmin Vafa was working as the group’s executive director. ¹⁷ Previously, she was a refugee coordinator for Amnesty International in Australia. After earning a law degree from the University of Florida in 2009, she practiced law for two years and then co-founded Rights4Girls in 2011. ¹⁸ Vafa has been an instructor at the People’s Forum, a socialist organization that acts as a movement incubator in the network of organizations funded by or associated with Neville Roy Singham. ^{19 20 21} She is the founding co-chair of World Without Exploitation, a coalition of approximately 200 organizations focused on ending sex trafficking and commercial sexual exploitation. ^{22  23}