I, Niriah Williams, am a survivor of sex trafficking. Through the Commercial Sexual Exploitation Abolition (C-SEA) Act, I want to change Texas laws so that any profit from another person’s sexual acts - physical, digital, recorded, written, or audible - is legally considered sex trafficking. This change will hold profiteers accountable, crack down on the demand driving exploitation, and help protect hundreds of thousands of victims in the U.S. who currently fall through legal loopholes. Current Texas law allows traffickers, platforms, and third parties to profit from another person’s sexual activity under certain loopholes, leaving victims unprotected while external beneficiaries benefit financially.

The C-SEA Act proposes key legal changes:

• Redefine sex trafficking to include any profit derived from another person’s sexual acts, regardless of consent.
• Ensure that only the individual performing the sexual acts profits; third parties, platforms, or other external beneficiaries cannot legally take a share of the proceeds, except for platform access fees.
• Close existing legal loopholes that allow profiteering from commercial sexual activity.
• Clarify that prostitution remains a crime, but the law targets all other forms of external profiteering.

Research shows: 

• Over 68% of individuals in prostitution meet criteria for PTSD, comparable to combat or torture survivors (Farley et al., 2018).
• Nearly 80% of sex trafficking survivors are first exploited online (U.S. DOJ, 2021).
• Victims of commercial sexual exploitation report high rates of depression, dissociation, and substance abuse (Dines, 2010; Layden, 2020).
• Legalized or tolerated commercial sex increases human trafficking inflows, as seen in Germany and the Netherlands (Cho, Dreher, & Neumayer, 2013; Dutch Ministry of Justice, 2007).
• Children of individuals in the sex trade are five times more likely to experience sexual abuse or enter the industry themselves (National Center on Sexual Exploitation, 2022).
• Exposure to pornography and commercial sexual content alters brain reward pathways, reduces empathy, and fuels compulsive behavior (Kühn & Gallinat, 2014).

These are just a few key research findings that support the reasoning behind the C-SEA Act. Extensive studies consistently show that the harms of commercial sexual exploitation far outweigh any claimed benefits, and it should no longer be treated as an empowering or legitimate business.

This legal shift could help save hundreds of thousands of victims, restabilize family structures in American society by dismantling commercial sexual exploitation, break down harmful ideologies that fuel modern slavery, and more.

Sign this petition to urge Texas lawmakers to pass the C-SEA Act, redefine sex trafficking, and stop profiteering from exploitation.

Read a full summary of reasoning, purpose, and research behind the C-SEA Act here: C-SEA Act Summary (Microsoft File)

Read the full draft of the proposed C-SEA Act here: Bill Proposal Draft (Microsoft File) 

*Important note*

While I do not support commercial sex in any form, it is important to make a clear distinction between an individual choosing to commercialize their own sexual activity and another individual profiting from the commercialization of someone else’s body. The act of selling or profiting from the sale of a human being’s body for sexual purposes should inherently be considered trafficking, regardless of consent, force, fraud, or coercion. If anything, force, fraud, or coercion should at a minimum be aggravating factors.

There is no logical or moral justification for treating commercial sex as legitimate employment, because it does not constitute a job that contributes to society in the way traditional labor does. There is no employer-employee relationship rooted in the fair exchange of labor for compensation, and commercial sex is objectively harmful to individuals and society. Laws must reflect this reality to effectively protect human dignity and hold exploiters accountable.

God bless you all, and thank you for your support.

Niriah Williams