2017 Mariam K. Chamberlain Award
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The International Center for Research on Women is pleased to announce the recipient of the 2017 Mariam K. Chamberlain Dissertation Award, Kate Price of the University of Massachusetts, Boston.
The Mariam K. Chamberlain Dissertation Award is named in honor of the founder of Re:Gender, a U.S.-based gender research institution that merged with ICRW in 2016. Mariam was a leader in shaping and launching the women’s studies academic and research movements in the United States and around the world. Through the Mariam K. Chamberlain Dissertation Award, her work fostering high-level scholarship and promoting mentorship continues through its support of a first-generation doctoral student conducting research to advance gender equality and social inclusion
In the first year administering the Mariam K. Chamberlain Award, ICRW is honored to be celebrating a gifted researcher, a passionate advocate and a pioneering activist in her work to support vulnerable children in the United States who fall prey to commercial sexual exploitation and trafficking.
Kate is most passionate about “the throw-away kids”; the children who have been neglected and abused without anyone to care for them. Kate has an unparalleled commitment to these individuals and as she herself attests, her own challenging childhood and survivor status informs her research and drives her passion for pursuing the ways that states can support women and girls, as well as men and boys, in exiting and healing from commercial sexual exploitation.
Kate was one of these children. She is a survivor who has turned her personal experience into a dedication to ending child abuse and a passion to advocate for the children whose voices are rarely heard.
Thank you ... for the Chamberlain Dissertation Award!! Tomorrow morning I will present my dissertation results to the very anti-human trafficking advocates who are working tirelessly to ensure sexually exploited minors are not being arrested or prosecuted for prostitution in the United States ... I am beyond thrilled to be able to directly apply and communicate my empirical evidence on the social, economic, and political factors driving (or hindering) this policy change.
Kate’s dissertation research will help advocates and state legislators pass decriminalization laws in states that currently arrest and prosecute sex-trafficked children. Her work has already aided such efforts to decriminalize — rather than prosecute and retraumatize — the survivors of childhood sexual exploitation and trafficking, notably in Florida.