Abolition Ohio was founded in March 2010 and we held our first public meeting in March 2011. We work in partnership with concerned community members and partner organizations in the Miami Valley and across the state and the country in a holistic approached aimed at preventing human trafficking, protecting victims and survivors and helping to prosecute the criminals responsible.
Abolition Ohio leads the Miami Valley’s anti-human trafficking coalition with member organizations and individual members from across Southwest Ohio. We are a registered, unincorporated nonprofit organization in the state of Ohio and a project of the University of Dayton Human Rights Center. The University of Dayton is our parent 501.c.3.
History of Abolition Ohio
In 2001 the Human Rights program organized a major conference on the Rights of the Child to assess the progress and achievements made in connection to the Declaration and Plan of Action adopted at the World Conference on the Child in 1990. At the conference considerable attention was given to the trafficking of children. In 2003 the Human Rights program organized a conference on Violence against Women. As with the conference on the Rights of the Child, the trafficking of women for sexual exploitation surfaced as a critical issue that merited sustained engagement by the program. In 2006 The Federal Bureau of Investigation in Dayton Ohio invited the director of the Human Rights program to participate in a series of meetings whose aim was to establish a human trafficking working group to combat human trafficking in the Greater Dayton/Miami Valley region of Ohio. Ultimately, the FBI decided to postpone the creation of the working group for budgetary reasons.
Over the next few years numerous social service and law enforcement agencies in the Miami Valley, and throughout Ohio, became increasingly aware of the existence of human trafficking in the Miami Valley. In this timeframe, an Ohio state senator introduced a bill to make human trafficking a standalone offense under Ohio law. When the bill stalled in the Ohio legislature, the Human Rights program decided to organize a major community summit to develop a coordinated plan of action to combat human trafficking. The November 2009 conference was attended by local, state and federal officials (including the senator who had sponsored the human trafficking bill SB 235, the Ohio Attorney General, the FBI, Ohio law enforcement officials and the police chiefs and sheriffs of Montgomery and Clark counties), as well as a broad range of area social services providers. That conference set in motion a community dialogue about the need for a Rescue and Restore Coalition, modeled after the US Department of Health and Services program, in the Miami Valley.
In March 2010, the Human Rights program hosted a meeting of the Washington-based Coalition of Catholic Organizations against Human Trafficking. That Coalition operates under the auspices of the Migration and Refugee Services of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, which at the time was under a HHS contract to coordinate anti-trafficking programming throughout the entire United States. The participants in the November 2010 community summit on human trafficking also participated in the Coalition meeting. At the conclusion of the March 2010 meeting, the Human Rights program took the decision to organize Abolition Ohio, the Rescue and Restore Coalition in the Miami Valley. The creation of Abolition Ohio was formally announced at a Human Trafficking Awareness event held in the Ohio State House.
As one of its first acts, Abolition Ohio endorsed and lobbied for the enactment of Ohio SB 235, which made human trafficking a stand-alone felony in Ohio. Faculty members and students from the Human Rights program, representing Abolition Ohio, were invited to testify before the Ohio senate in the final stages of debate on SB 235. The governor of Ohio signed the bill into law on December 23, 2010.
Meetings
When?
Abolition Ohio meets ten months out of the year.
Second Friday of every month from 9:00 to 10:30 a.m.
Meetings do no occur in the months of July and December.
Where?
Coalition meetings take place virtually on Zoom monthly and in-person/hybrid approximately quarterly. Contact abolitionohio@gmail.com to be added to the mailing list or to receive an invitation and Zoom link.
Who?
Meetings are open to the public. Attendees include local law enforcement, government agencies, community organizations, faith based organizations, as well as concerned citizens.
Speakers Bureau
We created the Speakers Bureau in order to raise awareness about human trafficking in the Miami Valley Region. We train and certify volunteers to give human trafficking 101 presentations to diverse audiences across the community. These audiences include civic organizations, nonprofit organizations, faith-based groups, businesses and schools.
Become a Member
Anyone passionate about working to end human trafficking can join. To apply, please fill out the application and submit a letter of recommendation from someone who has observed you present, teach, lead a workshop or perform a similar speaking activity. All recommendations should be emailed to abolitionohio@gmail.com.
Upon completion of training, Speakers Bureau members will be able to identify and understand:
- What is human trafficking
- Where it happens
- Who is involved
- How and why it takes place
- How to respond
- How to present sensitive material
- What are the responsibilities of membership
Request a Speaker
Abolition Ohio offers trainings and presentations at no charge for community and civic groups. Donations are accepted. To request a speaker, please complete our Speaker Request form.
Speaker Materials
All of our materials are available here. You should not use these materials unless you are a trained and certified member of the Abolition Ohio Speakers Bureau.
Disrupting Illicit Massage Businesses
Illicit massage businesses (IMBs), more commonly known as "erotic massage parlors," often act as fronts for human trafficking across the US. It's estimated that there are 10,000 IMBs in the US and 300 in Ohio.
In this report, we provide an overview of IMBs with a focus on Ohio. Ohio is unique in the US in that massage therapy is licensed and regulated by the state medical board, but non-medical, non-therapeutic, or "relaxation" massage operates with nearly zero oversight or regulation. This loophole in the law has contributed to the spread of IMBs that exploit primarily foreign workers for commercial sex and forced labor.
We present the scope and scale of the issue, discuss intersectional causes and impacts, and provide a detailed examination of both state and municipal policies. The report concludes with a disruption strategy designed to prevent exploitation and trafficking and reduce the number of IMBs in Ohio.
Additional Research and Reports
Explore the archive to review previous research and reports from Abolition Ohio.
