Rep. Joanne Giannini, the state rep. who is responsible for the new prostitution law, has decided not to run for reelection. On Channel 12 News Makers she says she wants to spend time with her family and focus on other endeavors.
You can see her interview here:
Posted in aclu, prostitution.
Tagged asian massage parlor, Giannini, happy endings, indoor prostitution, JoAnne Giannini, legal prostitution, rhode island
Today in the State Room of the Rhode Island State House, a press conference was held before Governor Donald Carcieri signed a bill that closed the nearly 30 year old loophole. Governor Carcieri, Joanne Giannini, Senator Paul Jabour, Attorney General Patrick Lynch, and RI State Police Col. Brendan Doherty all spoke about how this law will help new law will “end a blemish” on the image that Rhode Island had over the last 29+ years.
After sitting and watching this press conference, I thought to myself, all this fan fair and the governor is just signing one bill. The governor did not use this photo op to sign the human trafficking bill, and isn’t that what all the citizens of RI were worried about??
It is not difficult to realize that the real target, of the media, politicians, and police will be prostitution. When the target is prostitution, the target will be the prostitute or sex worker. The police say they will wait until they get complaints before raiding.
A few years while I was making “Happy Endings?” the police did raid the spas, and arrest the women for “massage with out a license”.
01:00 AM EST on Friday, November 4, 2005
BY ELIZABETH GUDRAIS
Journal Staff WriterPROVIDENCE — The detective arrived, complaining of pain in his lower back and asking for a massage. He got one — but he also got an offer of sex for $200, the police said.
Detectives arrested two women yesterday at separate businesses for permitting massages to be given without a license.
The arrested women for giving “permitting massages to be given without a license”. Does anyone believe they received a complaint about “illegal massages” before the raids?? This was in 2005 when prostitution was legal. If they were arresting women when they didn’t have a law, how can anyone actually believe that having a law will help these women?
But the police say they will wait until they get complaints. I am sure some of these “complaints” will come from Donna Hughes. Although Hughes does not live near any spas, she has registered complaints sent “information” closing another business that didn’t even do massages or employ Asians. At this point I don’t know who Hughes hates more, men or women or just heterosexuals in general. (Living life with that much hatred can only be described as sad)
State Col. Brendan Doherty, Donna Hughes, Rep. JoAnne Gianinni, First Lady Carcieri, Governor Donald Carcieri
What is sad is what I saw in some spas this morning before the press conference. Most spas have only one women left working besides the Imo who does the cooking and cleaning. There has been a mass exodus, women are scared. They are petrified of raids. They are afraid a cop will be setting them up, and make an example out of them. I saw one woman crying as I left to go and watch the signing.
Before today, I have never seen any woman in any spa that I thought was a victim of anything. Today, they all looked liked victims.
Tomorrow RI Governor Carcieri will sign h5044B into law. As the projo reports:
The governor, who is scheduled to sign the legislation at a ceremony in the State Room, will be joined by State Attorney General Patrick Lynch, State Police Colonel Brendan P. Doherty, and the bill’s sponsors, Rep. Joanne M. Giannini, D-Providence, and Sen. Paul V. Jabour, D-Providence.
I will be at the signing too, as it is a public event. As the Grateful Dead said it best “What a long strange trip it’s been”. I started this project in August of 2005 after leaving my pursuit of a graduate degree in Gender and Ethnic Studies. Now, it is over.
Interestingly enough, I have owned this cd. With the invention of mp3 players, I don’t play cds to often, but how ironic the title is “Skeletons from the Closet”. I wonder how many skeletons will be exposed once this legislation is signed and enforced?
I guess it is not a surprise that I would call myself a feminist. Some might even venture to call me a “Radical Feminist”. I always go for the side of the woman. Even when I watch game shows like Jeopardy or Wheel of Fortune I root for the women. I would think that most feminist would be on the side of women, but they are not. Donna Hughes, the “expert” in my film, has written numerous op. ed. pieces. Just recently she wrote in the Providence Journal about “The Circus of Prostitution” and I called her the Clown at the Center of the Circus. Professor Hughes essentially attacks the women she claims to be trying to help. Not only does she attack their appearance, she attacks them for speaking for themselves. Let me remind you these are the people she is claiming to help. Even in her letter in the Projo Hughes writes how the Governor, State Police, Judge, Police, and Reps (all men) spoke compellingly, yet the women’s testimony turned the hearing into a circus. Now please don’t get confused, I think that Donna Hughes is a “Radical Feminist” just like me, but she always sides with the men, and that is something I can’t understand. I think that this is somewhat like the whole “House Slave” and “Field Slave” phenomenon, where Professor Hughes is the “House Slave” and I am the “Field Slave”.
It is really sad that Hughes showed her true colors in this manner, but what is even sadder is some people didn’t see this. JoAnne Giannini who is the Representative who has put in the bill to re-criminalize prostitution has her heart in the right place. She had been convinced by Hughes that there were women being victimized and forced into sex slavery. Giannini wants to help the women, her heart is in the right place, but her brain is not. For some reason Giannini thinks the women can not be helped or saved unless they are arrested and put in prison. I don’t understand why she believes this so strongly, there are countries that have no prostitution laws and human sex-traffickers are convicted. Beside that, the majority of human trafficking is for domestic labor, and we do not make cleaning houses or dish washing illegal to go after the human traffickers. I hope that JoAnne Giannini wakes up from the trance that Donna Hughes has put on her in time to stop this war on women.
Yesterday Donna Hughes wrote a new opinion piece on The National Review, but this time she toned down her woman hating just a tad. (By the way, The National Review is the same publication that Hughes basically refers to George W. Bush as the first Feminist president) In this opinion piece she does not attack women’s appearances, but she just calls them uninformed.
Some local and national anti-trafficking organizations have actually worked behind the scenes to oppose the desperately needed reforms. They blame the lack of trafficking prosecutions on lack of political will and inadequate police training. In reality, trafficking laws work only where law enforcement is empowered to fight prostitution.
Other groups, such as the Rhode Island chapter of the ACLU and Rhode Island NOW, have opposed passage of a prostitution law for ideological reasons. They support the decriminalization of prostitution and mistakenly believe that good trafficking laws make prostitution laws unnecessary….
It is an unspeakable tragedy that women’s rights groups and even organizations dedicated to fighting trafficking are failing to understand how basic prostitution laws help officials to identify victims and prosecute traffickers.
I think it is incredible that Hughes believes that she knows more that countless women’s groups, anti-trafficking groups, and 50 other university professors that wrote a letter to oppose the law. And not only does she think that she is better informed than these people who range from those who offer direct services to human trafficking victims to those who have a PhD in these areas, she has the gall to publish an article saying all of these people lack understanding. No Professor Hughes, these people understand that in order to free women you do not put them in handcuffs.
happy endings? You Can't Clap with One Hand 