On Thursday and Friday, Sept. 29 and 30, The University of Toledo and Second Chance Advisory Board hosted the Eighth Annual International Human Trafficking, Prostitution and Sex Work Conference in the Student Union from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. The conference featured national and international speakers and researchers in an effort to lay the groundwork for future collaborative research, advocacy, and program development and educate social service, health care, and criminal justice professionals on human trafficking and the needs and risks of those victimized by the commercial sex industry.

This conference is particularly relevant in Toledo.  According to the Trafficking in Persons Study Commission, Toledo is the third largest city in human trafficking or sex slavery. In Ohio, there are estimates of more than 1,800 children being trafficked annually.

“The people being exploited for sex are our daughters, our sisters and the family members of people we know,” said Dr. Celia Williamson, lead researcher for the Trafficking in Persons Study Commission and professor in UT’s Department of Criminal Justice and Social Work. “Only in 2010 did Ohio finally make human trafficking itself a felony, and it is only through interagency and international partnerships that we can understand the scope of the problem and start to combat it.”

Williamson estimated there are 100,000 children trafficked in the United States with another 300,000 at risk.

“If we can get people to start recognizing some of the signs of sex trafficking and if we can get people to start to understand that a 15-year-old girl forced to sell her body is a victim and not a criminal, those will be steps in the right direction,” Williamson said.