Watersmeet Township is a civil township of Gogebic County in the Upper Peninsula of the U.S. state of Michigan and has a population of approximately 1,350 residents. Prostitution and sex trafficking within the county has been a well documented problem for more than 100 years, dating back to the 1880s. An article from that period described how women would be lured and trapped into serving in local brothels in Bessemer (the current county seat of Gogebic County) serving men in logging and mining camps. Large scale human trafficking operations in recent years have found numerous victims and offenders throughout the Upper Peninsula.

Consumer level demand provides the revenue stream for all prostitution and sex trafficking, and has therefore been targeted by local law enforcement agencies as a strategy for prevention and response. A law enforcement respondent to the 2021 National Assessment Survey reported that web-based reverse stings have been conducted once per year since 2018 in Watersmeet.