OMG moment of the day

Oh My God.  I have been out of commission for a few days doing my civic duty…Jury Duty!  So I haven’t been blogging.  Actually I haven’t been blogging or saying much on this topic lately because not much has been going on.  The law passed last November with pressure to “Help the Women and Children” and this past week we helped them…by arresting them.

Nick Horton has an excellent article at the Providence Daily Dose about the Raids

Until the details of the arrests come out, it will be impossible to say for certain whether there is any evidence of human trafficking in the spas where the arrests occurred.  All three of the women were released by the judge on bail, meaning that the state did not hold any of them for interrogation as part of a human trafficking investigation or place them in protective custody as potential victims of trafficking.  Proponents of the legislation previously argued that arresting women for indoor sex work would allow the state to remove them and protect them from dangerous situations.

Details of the arrests came out today in the Providence Journal.  Previously I was incorrect when I said there were no translators.  That was what I had heard “through the grapevine”, but the Journal reports:

Federal immigration officials and advocates from Day One, a sexual assault and trauma resource center in Providence, also interviewed the women who were working at the spas to determine if they are victims of sex-trafficking, Correia said. The law allows victims of sex trafficking to be granted immunity from prosecution.

“We weren’t able to get any information to lead us to think they were being held against their will,” Correia said.

As for the OMG moment of today, I decided to see what the men were saying about what was going on in the spas.  I went back to a website where they rate the women.  Think of this website is the 21 century version of a men’s bathroom wall.  You can’t believe half of what is said on this website,  it is not for those who value women as more than sexual objects.  On www.usasexguide.info if you check the forums in Rhode Island you will see a very interesting conversation going on started by one user named “Donna Hughes”.  Now, I don’t believe this is the real Donna Hughes, but some of the people in the site did believe that it was and what followed was crazy.  What is very ironic is the fact that the real Donna Hughes uses this board for her primary if not only source for research on the AMPS in Rhode Island.  I guess this should teach both sides one very valuable lesson…always check your sources!

Sunday’s meeting

On Sunday, October 25th, over 30 women from spas through out Rhode Island met to discuss the pending legislation on prostitution in Rhode Island.  You can read about it in the Projo, and at the Huffington Post.  The article on the Huffingston Post was written by Rep. David Segal who was at the meeting.

I was also at the meeting.  Rep. Edith Ajello told the women: “This is a huge rock you are looking to push up a very steep hill,” encouraging the women to attend a State House committee hearing Tuesday at 4 p.m. where the prostitution bill could be amended. “I think you should try. The most positive thing would be to put a human face on the issue.”

Some women did try, not by showing  up but by the old American way…getting a lawyer.  The Providence Journal seems like it is coming around against the legislation.  Bob Kerr wrote about the meeting, stating:

One woman talked of how it will interfere with her ability to send her daughter to college. Another suggested that the work she does is better than stealing.

But they will lose their jobs. The Rhode Island legislature will end its slow crawl to the moral high ground this week by eliminating the legal loophole that has allowed indoor prostitution to flourish.

At this time the bill has passed the house, and will shortly be voted on in the Senate.  It looks like indoor prostitution will be illegal by this weekend or early next week.

Here is audio from the meeting.  Listen to these soon to be “criminals” and ask yourself the question, Are you going to feel safer when these women are in prison?

1. Clips from the meeting
2. Interview 1 and 2
3. Interview 3 and 4

 

 

People Over Politics

This morning, 30 women from spas all over Rhode Island met to discuss the upcoming prostitution legislation.  These are the women who will be effected by the change in the law, and their voices must be heard.

Rhode Island Coalition Against Human Trafficking was at the meeting, offering services to the women.  All women were given a card with a number to call if they need help, and some of the women spoke to RICAHT one on one about their personal situations.

Three legislators were also present to ask questions of the women and answer questions about the legislation.  While there will be hearings on Tuesday and Wednesday on this legislation, the new bill has not been made available to the public.

Many of the women voiced concern over how the law will be implemented and what punishments they will face.

(The Providence Journal and WRNI were present and I am sure they will have a report on what they saw.  WRNI recorded audio of the meeting)

The legislators explained to the women that this legislation is a response to the public outcry in the Providence Journal to change the law.  They see this legislation as a response that will put the needs of the community above the safety and needs of the women.

This public outcry has been led by Donna Hughes, and we all know her version of reality is not based in truth.  (A great post on Hughes and Citizens Against Trafficking most recent propaganda riddled with inaccuracies  is shown here).

While there are many reasons not the pass this bill (economic impact, civil rights, and plain old common sense) there is only one reason to pass this bill….Politics.

There is a saying that the squeaky wheel gets the oil, and Hughes has been squeaking for the past 4 months.  This squeak will get her oil this week, and the women of the spas are the pawns in this whole game of politics. With a bill that will have a huge economic and human impact, it is time that we put people over politics.

Another Round of Hearings on Prostitution bills

From the Projo…

“The way the bill has been re-tuned and re-drafted is very sensitive to all the groups that have come forward,” the Senate bill’s sponsor, Sen. Paul V. Jabour, D-Providence, said Thursday. “Whether or not the bill really gets passed really depends on what happens after everything is heard.”

On Tuesday and Wednesday the Senate and the House will hold public hearings on a new prostitution bill.  This bill is the “new compromised bill” we have all been waiting for.  It doesn’t matter what the bill says, I know it will only be enforced against women.  In all states where prostitution is illegal, women are arrested at a rate over 90%, where the Johns are 5% and the pimps are 5%.  In RI there were 237 women in prison for prostitution (because street solicitation is still illegal) and not one man was in prison for being a john or a pimp.  Do we really think that making a new law criminalizing women who work indoors will be fair???

Please write to all the Senators and Representatives to show you are against this bill.

Senators@rilin.state.ri.us

Representatives@rilin.state.ri.us

Flames of Hope tonight

While this doesn’t have much to do with the prostitution law in Rhode Island, I will get a little off subject but for a good reason.  Tonight is Gloria Gemma’s Flames of Hope Water Fire.  I will be there filming, because filming is my passion.  The event is billed as a Celebration of Life and will light the State House in Pink, as well as have many family friendly events and all money raised will go to the LOCAL FIGHT!  This is the fourth annual “Pink Waterfire” and I have been at most of them.  I remember being at the first one held, just one month after my mother had been released from the hospital from her own battle with breast cancer, I think it was her 5th operation.  It was great hearing from women saying they were 20 year survivors or 2 week survivors.  It really is a celebration of hope.  If you can, please donate

Anti-Sex Crusade

There are radicals in every group.  Radical Republicans, Radical Liberals, Radical Feminists.  What is unfortunate is when the media decides to focus on those groups and alludes to  them representing the larger majority.   For some reason these radicals are vocal minorities, sometimes bullying people in their own group who even share some but not 100% of the same views.

Donna Hughes is the perfect example of radicalism, taking over groups and media with scare tactics and propaganda.  As the force behind the “close the prostitution loophole” drive, she bullied women out of Rhode Island Coalition Against Human Trafficking, falsely promoted the idea that the Senate  did not pass an anti prostitution law (and they did as Senator Jabour and Senator McCaffery stated), she has attacked the 50 academics that support keeping indoor prostitution decriminalized, and she even attacked the women in the massage parlors (these are the women she is trying to help).

I understand that prostitution is a heated and controversial issue, but I have always been taught that time is  better spent  promoting your own ideas rather than tearing down the people that may have different ideas, and I find it incredulous that she would spend time attacking women that share some of her ideas but are not in complete lock step with her.

Now, it seems that Hughes has gone and attacked another women, this time not for prostitution or human trafficking, but for wanting to open a Center for Sexual Pleasure and Education.  The Phoenix reports

The trouble started with an e-mail sent a couple of weeks back by University of Rhode Island professor Donna Hughes, best known for her crusade to close the state’s prostitution loophole, to members of the city council. Utilizing the suggestive power of well-placed quotation marks, the missive read, simply: “Hello, A center for ‘sexual rights’ and ‘sexual pleasure’ is opening in Pawtucket,” and included the web site for the center. Deputy City Clerk Michelle Hardy said Hughes’ e-mail was the first time any of the council members had heard of the center.

The Providence Journal reports that

She (Megan) and her husband went to City Hall. They met with Mayor James Doyle and his chief of staff Harvey Goulet. Goulet says they seem like very nice people. He just doesn’t like what they want to do.

“You have elderly living near there,” says Goulet. “And, usually, the elderly are not too much in favor of stuff like that.”

Education?  The elderly are not in favor of education?  Good thing we have Donna Hughes an educator keeping us away from education!!!  How ironic.  Also ironic is the city not supporting a center for education when the state of Rhode Island is #1 in New England for teen birth rate, with Pawtucket being the 3 in the state.  The ironies are piling up when you figure in the fact that businesses are leaving RI at a record pace, one would think a city would welcome a new business.

With this attack on a business that A) is not a brothel B) is not part of human trafficking and C) women owned, I truly believe that Donna Hughes should not be able to cast herself as anything more than an anti-sex zealot.

I am sad as a feminist that this women is able to harm so many.  I will pray for her 😉

(Also for your information all links are included to the articles so you can read user reactions, if you visit the CAT website, you will notice that articles are written anonymously, or if they are newspaper articles they are in pdf form so viewers will not get to see the readers comments, another great way of censoring the public!)

Breaking the law!

This weekend the Providence Journal released an excellent report RI Police charities solicit from “spas”.  In this report we find out how over the past years many of the spas, believed to be fronts for prostitution, have been donating to the Faternal Order of Police.  One of the spas even had what looks like 30 stickers from all of their donations wallpapered on the door of the spa.  Other spas  advertised in the police booklets.

 “COME TREAT YOUR BODY…” reads an ad for Lily Spa in the most recent 2008 issue of Cranston Police Union’s Public Safety Guide, a booklet of safety tips thick with ads from a variety of businesses….Spa ads also have turned up in The Rhode Island Trooper, the official publication of the non-profit Rhode Island Troopers Association, a membership organization of state troopers “dedicated to the improvement of the law enforcement profession…” The magazine’s spring/summer 2009 edition features articles on topics such as state police promotions, construction of a new state police headquarters and investigating fraud. The back of the magazine contains a directory filled with ads for area businesses. Under “pools & spas” is a thumbprint-sized listing for “Lily’s Spa.”

There are many things that I would like to point out about this article. 

1. It is illegal for police to use a third party to collect donations.  RIGL 11-18-31 “No professional solicitor shall solicit money from any individual or business in the name of any law enforcement agency or any organization which would reasonably appear to be affiliated in any way with any law enforcement agency or personnel.”   
2. The article also states “Police questioned three Korean women at the spa and concluded there was no evidence that they were victims of human trafficking and made no arrests.”  I hope people read this sentence and realised that the police have been in many of these spas (not only collecting donations) and have never found evidence human trafficking.  
3. Spas gave donations and kept the receipts for tax purposes.  This would mean they are legit businesses.  How many criminal entities give to charities?
4. A reported went in a spoke to women in the spas, she didn’t need to arrest them to get them to talk.  The police have said they need to arrest the women in order to get them to speak.  

 

Right now Rhode Island is working on a new prostitution law.  There are two bills, but  for a bill to become law there must be one bill that everyone in the House and Senate can agree on.  Because there is a disagreement on the bills, the State Police and the Attorney General have come in to create a compromise bill.  One question I have is how can the State Police be in charge of creating a bill about prostitution when they have been receiving money from the places they have been and will be targeting?  Usually politicians will recuse themselves when a bill comes up and it involves someone they have represented or received money from.  I wonder if the same thing will happen here?

Censorship

Donna Hughes doesn’t like some censorship.  She doesn’t like it when she is told not to do or say some things, even if those things are not based in science or fact. ( As Senator Levesque says, Donna M. Hughes has a “slender relationship with truth” and “Professor Hughes has clearly left behind any concept of the academic pursuit of knowledge and is in the employ of propaganda and advocacy.”)

In 2004 the ACLU defended Hughes when the University of Rhode Island made Hughes remove her writings from her website.  These writings were libelous, and prompted a lawsuit for defamation, yet in the vein of free speech and against censorship, the writings were put back up on the website.

One would think that someone who was attacked for their free speech would be less likely to try and censor others.  Well that is not the case here.

Hughes has now began a new attack on Megan Andelloux.  You might remember Hughes’ first attack on Ms. Andelloux for testifying at the Senate hearing.  That attack Ms. Andelloux responded to quite well with her own letter to the editor.  Now Hughes has stepped up her attack, sending letters to Pawtucket City Hall because Megan is planning to open a Center for Sexual Health and Pleasure in Pawtucket.

Just a few things to remember about this.

1.  Donna Hughes does not live in Pawtucket.  Remember Hughes said that the 50 College professors that were advising the General Assembly against passing the prostitution law should not be taken into account because they are not in state.  Hughes should not be taken into consideration because she is not in the city.  (FYI I am a Pawtucket resident)

2.  Donna Hughes complained about Freedom of speech and the free flow of ideas when her writings were taken down from the URI website, now she wants a certified instructor not to be able to open an office that will house a library and workshops?  That seems a little one sided to me.

3.  Hughes claims that her main focus is Human Trafficking.  Does any one with one functioning brain cell actually believe that a Center for Sexual Health and Pleasure  will be trafficking human beings for sex?  This blatant action of aggression shows that Hughes has left the human trafficking realm and gone straight to the hatred of all sex-forced or not.

4.  I still find it amazing that Hughes gets to call herself a feminist when she attacks all these WOMEN!!!  Not to mention that this particular woman is a graduate of University of Rhode Island, the school where Donna Hughes teaches.  I wonder how many women graduates of this University are sending the school money to pay for this professor to attack women?

Current Status on Prostitution in Rhode Island

Since the end of the legislative session not much has happened.  Reports have said that the State Police and the Governor’s Office have been working on a new prostitution law, but both Representative JoAnne Gianinni and Senator Paul Jabour have said they have not seen the legislation yet.  I personally do not know how far the State Police and the Governor’s office have gotten on the bill, both have more pressing issues to deal with.  The Governor is dealing with his face off with the Unions,debating the fur-low or 1,000 worker layoff.  Now the State Police have to deal with one of its troopers beating up a Providence Cop.  Bad publicity and national headlines for both the Governor and the State Police.

Just a week ago Senator Paul Jabour and Micheal McCaffery wrote an Op Ed in the Providence Journal defending their bill.  In the letter they write:

We must delineate the lines that have been blurred among the problems of indoor prostitution, outdoor prostitution, human sex trafficking, and strip-club dancing by minors. Each of these issues has an appropriate legal and moral response and confusing them will lead to ineffective policies and political responses.

The woman who blurs these lines, Donna Hughes of Citizens Against Trafficking, blasted back at Jabour and McCaffery with her own Op Ed entitled “Senator’s Prostitution Bill is a Sham”

RHODE ISLAND needs a good prostitution law to halt the metastasizing problems of prostitution and sex trafficking. The growing number of spas and clubs are sordid destinations for foreign women and teens from around the Northeast. .. Contrary to the claim made by Senators Paul Jabour (D.-Providence) and Michael McCaffrey (D.-Warwick) in their Aug. 31 Commentary piece, the Senate bill does not “close the loophole.”

In order for a prostitution bill to pass, it must be the same on the House and the Senate side.  If the Governor and Police do actually submit a bill, Senator Jabour will need to sign off on it.  I can’t imagine he really wants to do any favors for Hughes, who has been dragging his name through the mud.  (She has published this op-ed in several local papers)

After all of these back and forth op eds, Senator Levesque jumped into the action and wrote his own titled “Anti-prostitution law means more deaths”  Opening up with the line “We have once again been treated to Donna Hughes slender relationship with truth.”  (Nice way to put it!)

With all this infighting, and the prostitution legislation pretty much grinding to a halt, Providence Mayor David Cicilline decided to get into the fray.  Mayor Cicilline has submitted an ordinance to be considered at Thursdays at the City meeting.  If found guilty, those accused would face, for each offense, a $500 fine and/or imprisonment of up to 30 days, which is the maximum penalty allowable for municipal-level violations (the proposed ordinance would be adjudicated by the Municipal Court, but I wonder where they would house those found guilty, Providence doesn’t have any prisons). I don’t know how legal this ordinance is because it is in the massage ordinance, so essentially they will only be going after the massage parlors and if that isn’t selective enforcement I don’t know what is?!? (Selective enforcement is one of the reasons RI doesn’t have a prostitution law today)

Personally, I think there isn’t much political reason to pass a prostitution law this year.  Next year is an election year, so this year doesn’t count for much.  With the state in such economic shambles, the Governor going to court every other day to fight the state workers, the 60 million budget shortfall, I think the prostitution law will stop being front page news.  Besides, RI doesn’t have the money to implement it. When I was asked back in the beginning of June if a prostitution law was going to pass this year, I though the odds were 80/20 that it was going to pass.  Now I think it is 70/30 that it will not. (Not this year, but when January rolls around I will put the odds back at 80/20)

Also if you follow the links to the articles, be sure to read the comments by local Rhode Islanders.  There is not one that supports changing the law.

Mayor Proposes Ban of Massage Parlors

Today, Mayor David Cicilline proposed a ban on indoor prostitution.  In a letter he wrote to the City council Cicilline proposes an amendment to Section 14-251 of the City Ordinances, which requires that massage parlors and health clubs be licensed by the city Bureau of Licenses.

“Anyone who knowingly permits, offers or receives any person into any place for the purpose of committing any commercial sexual activity would be subject to a $500 fine and/or imprisonment of up to 30 days.
Anyone determined to be a customer shall be found guilty of a violation and subject to a fine of $500 and/or imprisonment of up to 30 days.”

While it is obvious that Mayor Cicilline is trying to jump into the limelight and “save the day” from the Asian massage parlors, there are a few other things that should be looked at in regard to city ordinances.  I am not a lawyer, I am just a filmmaker, but while browsing through the city ordinances, I didn’t see any ordinance that had prison time. Sure I didn’t read them all, (there are a ton about keeping swine in city limits and burying horses), but even in the ones that looked important, those didn’t have any prison time.

Also lets look at the idea that Providence has become a “victim” and over run by spas.  Recently an email was sent to me about Mesa, Arizona.  Mesa is a city outside of Phoenix and about 2 and a half  times the population of Providence.  Providence reports to have 20 spas, and Mesa reports to have 120.  Because of the size difference I would expect Mesa to have 50 spas.  Actually, I take that back.  Prostitution is illegal in Arizona, so I would expect Mesa not to have any spas, never mind having six times the amount that Providence has.  So I guess criminalizing doesn’t work, or at least it isn’t working in Arizona.