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Results of sex-trafficking study released by AG Dewine’s office
By Marc Kovac
COLUMBUS
Minors should not be labeled as “prostitutes,” and public agencies should reach out sooner to teen-age runaways and others at risk of falling prey to human traffickers.
Those are among the recommendations in a study released Wednesday by Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine and compiled by a commission after surveying more than 300 people involved in sex trafficking, with a focus on 115 who started when they were younger than 18 and victims in Ohio’s largest cities.
“The Ohio Attorney General’s Office asked the commission to go out into the community and talk with human trafficking victims,” DeWine said in a released statement.
“Because of this report, we now have more insight into who is more likely to get trafficked and how to prevent it.”
The study found that more than half of sex-trafficking victims had either run away from home at least once or had friends or family members who were involved in sex trades.
And victims reported “abysmally low numbers” of teachers, social workers and others who attempted to help them avoid or escape the sex trade.
The study offered a number of recommendations for combatting sex trafficking, many focused on reaching out to at-risk youngsters before they are trapped in sex trades.
The study recommended clearer mandates for child welfare agencies to provide improved response and services for minor victims and improved state services for responding to reports of teen runaways, including the establishment of a database with pictures and descriptions of the minors involved and printable posters.
“In Ohio, it seems that kids run away, and then social workers like me wait for them to run back, and then we do an intervention,” said Celia Williamson, a professor at the University of Toledo and author of the study.
She added, “We have to be able to identify that those kids that are on the run with these other risk factors, maybe those are kids that we need to be intervening with now — either going to get them or, as soon as they come back, getting them intervention if it’s their first run away.”
The report also suggests increased training for teachers and school officials to identify youngsters who may be at risk to sex traffickers, changed descriptions by state agencies of sex-trafficking victims, eliminating “juvenile prostitutes,” “youth prostitutes” and other labels, and increased convictions of people who are caught soliciting or paying others for sex.