By Karen Lee Ziner
Journal Staff Writer
Last fall, when 20 brothels in the Northeast were shut down and several dozen people were
arrested, news reports illuminated the scope of human trafficking in Rhode Island as well as across the United States.
Now, more than 30 activists and concerned citizens have formed the Rhode Island Coalition Against
Human Trafficking that hopes to educate the public, bring attention to the number of victims in Rhode Island and promote legislation that enables law enforcement to prosecute individuals involved in these human-rights abuses.
The legislation will also push for a statewide task force to prevent trafficking and provide victim protection.
"We try to talk to a lot of people about how trafficking domestically is real," says Zachary
Townsend, coalition co-chairman and co-coordinator of Polaris Project Rhode Island, a local chapter of an international group committed to ending human trafficking and sexual slavery.
The trafficking ranges from
thousands of people — many of them women and teenagers — smuggled into the United States every year, as well as others who are enslaved in this country.
"If it's a situation where they can't leave, it's slavery," says
Townsend. "There are a lot of Americans who are in these situations too, kept by someone else and used for sex exploitation. It's a big problem right here in Rhode Island, and in New England. It's one of the reasons we're so
interested in getting legislation," he said.
"Even street prostitution, in our experience, almost always [prostitutes] are in a circumstance where a pimp is demanding they make a certain amount of money, and beating
them if they don't," said Townsend. "That's human trafficking too …"
The new coalition was formed after a public forum held by the Rhode Island branch of the National Council of Jewish Women and Providence Mayor David
N. Cicilline last month; the group has been meeting on the first Monday of the month.
Supporters include Cicilline's office, the Rhode Island section of the National Council of Jewish Women, the Rhode Island Chapter of
the National Association of Social Workers; Progreso Latino, R.E.N.E.W., and Day One: The Sexual Assault & Trauma Resource Center.
A bill that Rep. Joanne Giannini successfully introduced in the House last year
(but whose companion bill failed in the Senate), has been updated to a more comprehensive version.
"It adds a criminal provision for human trafficking, forms a state task force to figure out how big a problem this is
in Rhode Island, and a third section is victim protection," Townsend said.
A much-discussed loophole in Rhode Island law that makes indoor prostitution legal is only part of the issue, said Townsend. That loophole
"makes Rhode Island a desirable location for traffickers, especially those operating in massage parlors or residential brothels," he said.
But even if indoor prostitution were illegal, said Townsend, "there would still be a trafficking problem."
Giannini, who is expected to reintroduce the more comprehensive legislation this session, has called sex
trafficking "a barbaric crime against women, and we need to treat it as the serious crime that it is."
Deborah Chorney, coalition co-chairwoman, said, "Human trafficking exists in Rhode Island. Women are emotionally
and physically abused, and laborers are kept in slave-like conditions in our neighborhoods."
