A Seat at the Table: The Courage to Care about Victims

Human trafficking is the human rights issue of our lifetime and is currently happening in our communities. Celia Williamson grew up with three friends that were trafficked and became an internationally known advocate in the fight against human trafficking.

 A Seat at the Table travels deep into the life of an anti-trafficking advocate in Ohio. Her work spans 25 years and began when she decided to go out on the streets herself for six months to learn the culture of street prostitution, the players, the dangers, and the experience of the women. As a result of this experience, she built the first direct service anti-trafficking program in Ohio.

The book progresses to tell the story of her experience as advocate with and on behalf of victims, developing programs to support victim recovery, organizing coalitions to support victims, working with politicians to pass state laws, to collaborating internationally to put an end to human trafficking. She saw youth and women’s lives destroyed, young people die, and some succeed and thrive. She takes the reader through the struggles and the relationships, moving both herself and victims to survivors and then to thrivers. More specifically, the book consists of three major components, the first third of the book is focused largely on the advocate’s childhood, her three friends that were eventually trafficked, and one murdered.

The second half of the book focuses on her street work and group work with women and her ability to enter spaces and connect with women and youth in way in which others were denied access. Here she shares her experiences, the women’s struggles and ways she was able to remove the barriers and create a safe space for women to build trust, relationship, and begin to heal.

The third part of the book is focused on the author’s work to build a thriving anti-trafficking coalition, pass state laws, conduct critical research, and participate in shifting the paradigm regarding how we see these women and youth in our own communities. Throughout the book, Dr. Celia Williamson talks candidly and vividly about the stories of both the women and the children’s lives she’s encountered and their tragic and triumphant outcomes and how others can and should advocate for society’s most vulnerable. The “Courage to Care” is at the center of her work and the book.