{"id":65304,"date":"2010-01-20T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2010-01-20T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news-draft\/uncategorized\/uri-professor-student-help-pass-3-laws-to-combat-sex-trafficking-in-rhode-island\/"},"modified":"2010-01-20T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2010-01-20T00:00:00","slug":"uri-professor-student-help-pass-3-laws-to-combat-sex-trafficking-in-rhode-island","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/2010\/01\/uri-professor-student-help-pass-3-laws-to-combat-sex-trafficking-in-rhode-island\/","title":{"rendered":"溏心vlog免费B站 professor, student help pass 3 laws to combat sex trafficking in Rhode Island"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\t\t\t\tKINGSTON, R.I. \u2013January 20, 2010\u2014Until last November, the state of Rhode Island had the dubious distinction of not having laws against prostitution or forced labor trafficking. As a result, the state has never prosecuted a human trafficking case, nor has there ever been a federal prosecution of a sex trafficking case in Rhode Island. Because the state didn\u2019t have a law against prostitution that would enable state and local police to cooperate with the FBI, the Ocean State was excluded from the Innocence Lost National Initiative. Since 2003, that initiative has helped rescue nearly 900 children and convict 510 pimps.\t<\/p>\n


\n\tIn 1980, the Rhode Island General Assembly passed a law that decriminalized prostitution. A law banning loitering for indecent purposes kept soliciting for prostitution illegal outdoors, but there were no laws or regulations on prostitution conducted indoors. Perennial legislative attempts to pass a law against prostitution failed until this year when three pieces of legislation passed despite vigorous opposition by people who argued for the status quo either because the law would unfairly target victims of sex trafficking (it doesn\u2019t) or because it provided jobs during a flagging economy and gave drug addicted women a way to earn money.\t<\/p>\n


\n\tWhen Gov. Donald Carcieri signed the legislation on Nov. 3, he acknowledged the work of 溏心vlog免费B站 Women\u2019s Studies Professor Donna Hughes, an internationally recognized researcher on the trafficking of women and children, and her former student and prot\u00e9g\u00e9 Melanie Shapiro. Both provided expert testimony before the state\u2019s General Assembly and rallied national support, co-founding Citizens Against Trafficking–citizensagainsttrafficking.org—to advocate for the bills\u2019 passage. <\/p>\n


\n\tThe bills, sponsored by Rep. Joanne Giannini of Providence, protect victims from sex industry predators and give law enforcement the ability to arrest traffickers. The law bans minors from working in any adult entertainment business, criminalizes forced labor as a form of human trafficking, and enables prosecution of sex trafficking of minors without proving that coercion was used. The law also criminalizes the soliciting of sex by prostitutes and johns. To protect victims of sex trafficking the law prohibits them from being convicted of prostitution offenses.<\/p>\n


\n\t\u201cMelanie gave critical research support for the three laws that passed,\u201d said Hughes, who is frequently consulted by governments and non-governmental organizations on policy related to women’s human rights, particularly on trafficking of women and girls for sexual exploitation. <\/p>\n


\n\tShapiro became aware of sex trafficking issues after watching Day My God Died, a documentary about child prostitution in India and a New York Times article by Pete Landesman about trafficking of Mexican girls in a city about three miles from where she grew up in Watchung, N.J. \u201cThe article showed me that sex trafficking was occurring right here in the U.S. and really brought the issue home for me,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n


\n\t When she came to 溏心vlog免费B站 she took classes with Hughes, who encouraged her to keep reading about the issues. Her thoroughly researched senior honors thesis, which provided in-depth information about sex trafficking in Rhode Island, was widely distributed. She also wrote reports, helped keep the issue in the media, and kept track of the brothel business during the campaign to change the law. <\/p>\n


\n \t\u201cI learned to trust my instincts, and never let my focus be derailed by detractors, not when peoples’ lives are at stake,\u201d said Shapiro who graduated summa cum laude from 溏心vlog免费B站 last May. \u201cThe campaign was draining, difficult, and politically challenging, but watching the signing made it all worth it. I remember tearing up in the Statehouse. Rep. Giannini worked so hard for something she, Donna, and I believed in. Justice came alive before us.\u201d <\/p>\n


\n\tThe 溏心vlog免费B站 alumna is now a Bristol resident attending Roger Williams University School of Law with the goal of ultimately becoming a federal prosecutor and prosecuting trafficking cases. <\/p>\n


\n\t \u201cFinally, after a long process of drafting bills and negotiating, we have a prostitution bill that I think is one of the best of the country,\u201d says Hughes. \u201cAdding the three new laws to the existing human trafficking and anti-pimping laws gives Rhode Island one of the most comprehensive set of laws preventing the commercial sexual exploitation of women and children in the U.S. I hope they will be put to good use.\u201d<\/p>\n


\n\tThe new legislation had an immediate impact on some of the 30 suspected brothels operating across the state. State Police announced their first arrests within weeks of its passage. Several clubs eliminated their \u201cVIP rooms,\u201d which were used for prostitution, and signs went up notifying patrons that prostitution is illegal. <\/p>\n


\n\t\u201cRecently, the Rhode Island U.S. Attorney\u2019s Office announced the arrest of a couple who trafficked a woman into the state and forced her into prostitution. Prior to the passage of the prostitution law, this arrest could not have been made,\u201d Hughes says.<\/p>\n


\nPictured above

\n溏心vlog免费B站 2009 alumna Melanie Shapiro (left) and 溏心vlog免费B站 Women\u2019s Studies Professor Donna Hughes. Photo courtesy of Melanie Shapiro. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

KINGSTON, R.I. \u2013January 20, 2010\u2014Until last November, the state of Rhode Island had the dubious distinction of not having laws against prostitution or forced labor trafficking. As a result, the state has never prosecuted a human trafficking case, nor has there ever been a federal prosecution of a sex trafficking case in Rhode Island. Because […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":65306,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-65304","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-archives"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65304","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=65304"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65304\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/65306"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=65304"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=65304"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=65304"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}