Celia Williamson is an American University of Toledo Distinguished Professor of Social Work and Executive Director of the Human Trafficking and Social Justice Institute, as well as researcher and community advocate who seeks to combat domestic human trafficking and prostitution. She was named the 26th most influential social worker alive today. [1]
In 2022, Dr. Williamson became a member of the G100 serving as one of the global 100 women changing the world. She serves as the global wing against human trafficking. Williamson is the founder of the Second Chance program, the Lucas County Human Trafficking Coalition, Chaired the Research and Analysis State Trafficking Commission, and is a founding member and President of the Global Association of Human Trafficking Scholars.
She has written extensively on issues of domestic minor sex trafficking and adult prostitution in the U.S.
Williamson received her bachelor's degree in Social Work from the University of Toledo, her master's degree in Social Work from Case Western Reserve University and her Ph.D. from Indiana University School of Social Work.
Williamson started her career as a social worker at a community center in north Toledo working with children and families. While driving into work every day she would see women on the street involved in prostitution. She spent six months on the street building relationships, interviewing women, and immersing herself into the culture. After six months she built the first direct service anti-trafficking program in Ohio. with initial funding from the United Methodist Church and the City of Toledo, Williamson conducted street outreach on the streets of Toledo and in jails, facilitated groups, and advocated for women and youth. She went on to win grants and bring funding to the Toledo community to provide program and services for sex trafficking victims. [2] In 2017 the program changed its name to RISE.
After receiving her PhD, she returned to the Toledo community to build a thriving anti-trafficking coalition and serve Chair of the Research and Analysis Committee of the State's Anti-trafficking Coalition. In 2015, Williamson became the Executive Director of the Human Trafficking and Social Justice Institute at the University of Toledo. She has been hosting an annual International Human Trafficking and Social Justice Conference at the University of Toledo since 2004. [3] She also founded the Lucas County Human Trafficking Coalition, which includes local criminal justice, social service, and health care agencies, along with businesses, university members, churches, citizens, and adult survivors, and the FBI Innocence Lost Task Force. [4]
In 1993, Williamson founded Second Chance, an organization that develops individualized service plans for women and children survivors and victims in Toledo, Ohio.
In 2009, Williamson and others founded the Lucas County Human Trafficking Coalition. [5]
Williamson has also been active in advocating for legislation surrounding sex trafficking on a state level. She supported and advocated for all of the anti-trafficking bills passed in Ohio.
Under the direction of Representative Teresa Fedor and the Ohio Attorney General, Williamson became a founding member of the Ohio Human Trafficking Commission and currently serves as the Chair of the Research and Analysis Committee of the Commission. [6]
The majority of Williamson's research is on sex trafficking and prostitution. Her research has focused on examining victims' experiences, as well as working to create promising practices and evidence-based models of prevention for high-risk youth and quality intervention with victims. Williamson has been funded by the Department of Justice and/or National Institutes of Health for ten consecutive years from 2002 to 2012. She has since been funded by the State of Ohio and various local and national foundations.
Her 2010 study, entitled "Exiting Prostitution: An Integrated Model", focused specifically on the challenges encountered by women attempting to exit the commercial sex industry. [7] Her 2009 study, "Domestic Minor Sex Trafficking: A Network of Underground Players in the Midwest" explored women's experiences with: (a) violence, (b) HIV risks and condom use, (c) emotional and physical health, (d) substance use, (e) home life and street life, and (f) experiences with local 130 systems including the juvenile justice system, the social service system, and the health care system. [8] A 2002 study by Williamson entitled "Pimp-Controlled Prostitution" focused on understanding the traditional pimp-prostitute relationship through qualitative research. [9]
Williamson has conducted some groundbreaking research in area of human trafficking and has published over 25 articles and reports. Some of her latest work involves the creation of an 8-topic curriculum for youth at risk for sex and/or labor trafficking. Williamson also has a popular podcast called "Emancipation Nation" and an online network of anti-trafficking advocates called the "Emancipation Nation Network".
The Human Trafficking and Social Justice Conference is the oldest academic conference on human trafficking in the nation. Started in 2004, the annual conference has hosted representatives from 42 states and 30 countries. An average of 1,400 people attended the conference, 400 of which are high school students. The two days conference hosts an average of 90 presenters. http://www.traffickingconference.com
Dr. Williamson also hosts the Emancipation Nation Podcast available wherever you get your podcasts.
She founded and hosts the Emancipation Nation Network, a free online network of anti-trafficking advocates from around the world. The Network offers a daily updated host of information on anti-trafficking focused grants, jobs, free webinars, and the latest research. Members have access to message each other and collaborate.
In 2014, Williamson was named the 26th most influential social worker alive today by the Social Work Degree Guide, based on merit, scholastic study, and political activism. [10] In 2009, Williamson was inducted into the Ohio Women's Hall of Fame for her work on sex trafficking and prostitution issues throughout Ohio. [11] In 2009, Second Chance, founded by Williamson, received the FBI Director's Community Leadership Award for its efforts. [12]
A sex worker is a person who provides sex work, either on a regular or occasional basis. The term is used in reference to those who work in all areas of the sex industry.
Sex work is "the exchange of sexual services, performances, or products for material compensation. It includes activities of direct physical contact between buyers and sellers as well as indirect sexual stimulation". Sex work only refers to voluntary sexual transactions; thus, the term does not refer to human trafficking and other coerced or nonconsensual sexual transactions such as child prostitution. The transaction must take place between consenting adults of the legal age and mental capacity to consent and must take place without any methods of coercion, other than payment. The term emphasizes the labor and economic implications of this type of work. Furthermore, some prefer the use of the term because it grants more agency to the sellers of these services.
Child prostitution is prostitution involving a child, and it is a form of commercial sexual exploitation of children. The term normally refers to prostitution of a minor, or person under the legal age of consent. In most jurisdictions, child prostitution is illegal as part of general prohibition on prostitution.
Sex trafficking is human trafficking for the purpose of sexual exploitation. It has been called a form of modern slavery because of the way victims are forced into sexual acts non-consensually, in a form of sexual slavery. Perpetrators of the crime are called sex traffickers or pimps—people who manipulate victims to engage in various forms of commercial sex with paying customers. Sex traffickers use force, fraud, and coercion as they recruit, transport, and provide their victims as prostitutes. Sometimes victims are brought into a situation of dependency on their trafficker(s), financially or emotionally. Every aspect of sex trafficking is considered a crime, from acquisition to transportation and exploitation of victims. This includes any sexual exploitation of adults or minors, including child sex tourism (CST) and domestic minor sex trafficking (DMST).
Prostitution is legal in India, but a number of related activities including soliciting, kerb crawling, owning or managing a brothel, prostitution in a hotel, child prostitution, pimping and pandering are illegal. There are, however, many brothels illegally operating in Indian cities including Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata, Pune, and Nagpur, among others. UNAIDS estimate there were 657,829 prostitutes in the country as of 2016. Other unofficial estimates have calculated India has roughly 3 million prostitutes. India is widely regarded as having one of the world's largest commercial sex industry. It has emerged as a global hub of sex tourism, attracting sex tourists from wealthy countries. The sex industry in India is a multi-billion dollar one, and one of the fastest growing.
Procuring, pimping, or pandering is the facilitation or provision of a prostitute or other sex worker in the arrangement of a sex act with a customer. A procurer, colloquially called a pimp or a madam or a brothel keeper, is an agent for prostitutes who collects part of their earnings. The procurer may receive this money in return for advertising services, physical protection, or for providing and possibly monopolizing a location where the prostitute may solicit clients. Like prostitution, the legality of certain actions of a madam or a pimp vary from one region to the next.
Prostitution in Finland is legal, but soliciting in a public place and organised prostitution are illegal. According to a 2010 TAMPEP study, 69% of prostitutes working in Finland are migrants. As of 2009, there was little "visible" prostitution in Finland as it was mostly limited to private residences and nightclubs in larger metropolitan areas.
Prostitution in Mexico is legal under Federal Law. Each of the 31 states enacts its own prostitution laws and policies. Thirteen of the states of Mexico allow and regulate prostitution. Prostitution involving minors under 18 is illegal. Some Mexican cities have enacted "tolerance zones" which allow regulated prostitution and function as red-light districts. In Tuxtla Gutiérrez, capital of the state of Chiapas, there is a state-run brothel at the Zona Galáctica(Galactic Zone). In most parts of the country, pimping is illegal, although pimp-worker relationships still occur, sometimes under female pimps called "madrotas"("Big Mothers"). The government provides shelter for former prostitutes.
Prostitution is the business or practice of engaging in sexual activity in exchange for payment. The definition of "sexual activity" varies, and is often defined as an activity requiring physical contact with the customer. The requirement of physical contact also creates the risk of transferring infections. Prostitution is sometimes described as sexual services, commercial sex or, colloquially, hooking. It is sometimes referred to euphemistically as "the world's oldest profession" in the English-speaking world. A person who works in this field is called a prostitute, and sometimes a sex worker, but the words hooker and whore are also sometimes used to describe those who work as prostitutes.
Current laws passed by the Parliament of Canada in 2014 make it illegal to purchase or advertise sexual services and illegal to live on the material benefits from sex work. The law officially enacted criminal penalties for "Purchasing sexual services and communicating in any place for that purpose."
Sex workers' rights encompass a variety of aims being pursued globally by individuals and organizations that specifically involve the human, health, and labor rights of sex workers and their clients. The goals of these movements are diverse, but generally aim to legalize or decriminalize sex work, as well as to destigmatize it, regulate it and ensure fair treatment before legal and cultural forces on a local and international level for all persons in the sex industry.
Prostitution in Ukraine is illegal but widespread and largely ignored by the government. In recent times, Ukraine has become a popular prostitution and sex trafficking destination. Ukraine is a source, transit, and destination country for women and children trafficked transnationally for the purposes of commercial sexual exploitation. Ukraine's dissolution from the Soviet Union, saw the nation attempt to transition from a planned economy to a market economy. The transition process inflicted economic hardship in the nation, with nearly 80% of the population forced into poverty in the decade that followed its independence. Unemployment in Ukraine was growing at an increasing rate, with female unemployment rising to 64% by 1997. The economic decline in Ukraine made the nation vulnerable and forced many to depend on prostitution and trafficking as a source of income. Sex tourism rose as the country attracted greater numbers of foreign tourists.
Laura J. Lederer is a pioneer in the work to stop human trafficking. She is a legal scholar and former Senior Advisor on Trafficking in Persons in the Office for Democracy and Global Affairs of the United States Department of State. She has also been an activist against human trafficking, prostitution, pornography, and hate speech. Lederer is founder of The Protection Project, a legal research institute at Johns Hopkins University devoted to combating trafficking in persons.
Melissa Farley is an American clinical psychologist, researcher and radical feminist anti-pornography and anti-prostitution activist. Farley is best known for her studies of the effects of prostitution, trafficking and sexual violence. She is the founder and director of the San Francisco-based organization, Prostitution Research and Education.
In the United States, human trafficking tends to occur around international travel hubs with large immigrant populations, notably in California, Texas, and Georgia. Those trafficked include young children, teenagers, men, and women; victims can be domestic citizens or foreign nationals.
Prostitution in Northern Ireland is governed by the Human Trafficking and Exploitation Act 2015, which makes it illegal to pay for sex in Northern Ireland. Prior to the act coming into effect, prostitution in Northern Ireland was regulated by the same or similar laws to those in England and Wales, as it is elsewhere in the United Kingdom. At that time, prostitution in Northern Ireland was legal subject to a number of restraints which controlled certain activities associated with prostitution, such as soliciting, procuring, living on the proceeds of prostitution (pimping), exploitation of prostitutes, under-age prostitution, and keeping a brothel. However, devolution provided the opportunity for separate legislation in Northern Ireland.
Prostitution laws varies widely from country to country, and between jurisdictions within a country. At one extreme, prostitution or sex work is legal in some places and regarded as a profession, while at the other extreme, it is considered a severe crime punishable by death in some other places. A variety of different legal models exist around the world, including total bans, bans that only target the customer, and laws permitting prostitution but prohibiting organized groups, an example being brothels.
Natasha Falle is a Canadian professor at Humber College in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, who was forcibly prostituted from the ages of 15 to 27 and now opposes prostitution in Canada. Falle grew up in a middle-class home and, when her parents divorced, her new single-parent home became unsafe, and Falle ran away from home. At the age of 15, Falle became involved in the sex industry in Calgary, Alberta.
The decriminalization of sex work is the removal of criminal penalties for sex work. Sex work, the consensual provision of sexual services for money or goods, is criminalized in most countries. Decriminalization is distinct from legalization.
Sex trafficking in the United States is a form of human trafficking which involves reproductive slavery or commercial sexual exploitation as it occurs in the United States. Sex trafficking includes the transportation of persons by means of coercion, deception and/or force into exploitative and slavery-like conditions. It is commonly associated with organized crime.
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