Donna M Hughes
Donna M. Hughes, BS, MS, PhD, is the founder and editor-in-chief of Dignity: A Journal of Analysis of Exploitation and Violence. She was previously the Eleanor M. and Oscar M. Carlson Endowed Chair in Women's Studies and Professor. She is now retired, but actively edits and publishes Dignity
In 2017, she was awarded the "College of Arts and Sciences Annual Research Award;" and she was awarded the "Alice Paul Award for Women Who Have Worked to Confront Men's Violence Against Women" by the Committee on Feminist Movement History of the National Organization for Men Against Sexism.
In 2010, she was awarded the "URI Council on Research Annual Research Award;" and she was awarded the "Norma Hotaling, Josephine Butler Award for "challenging the status quo and creating new abolitionist policy and approaches to sex trafficking in the United States."
She is on the Board of Directors of The National Center on Sexual Exploitation, USA
She is researcher on human trafficking and sexual exploitaton. She is one of the founders of the academic study of sex trafficking. She has completed research on the trafficking of women and girls for sexual exploitation in the United States, Russia and Ukraine. She was the first researcher to write about how the Internet was used to traffic women and girls.
She does research and writing on women's rights. Her topic areas include: violence, slavery, sexual exploitation, Islamic fundamentalism, and women's organized resistance to violence and exploitation. She has also worked on issues related to women, science and technology.
She is a co-Founder of Citizens Against Trafficking
Address: 512 Chafee Social Science Center
University of Rhode Island
Kingston, Rhode Island 02881
In 2017, she was awarded the "College of Arts and Sciences Annual Research Award;" and she was awarded the "Alice Paul Award for Women Who Have Worked to Confront Men's Violence Against Women" by the Committee on Feminist Movement History of the National Organization for Men Against Sexism.
In 2010, she was awarded the "URI Council on Research Annual Research Award;" and she was awarded the "Norma Hotaling, Josephine Butler Award for "challenging the status quo and creating new abolitionist policy and approaches to sex trafficking in the United States."
She is on the Board of Directors of The National Center on Sexual Exploitation, USA
She is researcher on human trafficking and sexual exploitaton. She is one of the founders of the academic study of sex trafficking. She has completed research on the trafficking of women and girls for sexual exploitation in the United States, Russia and Ukraine. She was the first researcher to write about how the Internet was used to traffic women and girls.
She does research and writing on women's rights. Her topic areas include: violence, slavery, sexual exploitation, Islamic fundamentalism, and women's organized resistance to violence and exploitation. She has also worked on issues related to women, science and technology.
She is a co-Founder of Citizens Against Trafficking
Address: 512 Chafee Social Science Center
University of Rhode Island
Kingston, Rhode Island 02881
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Published Papers & Research Reports by Donna M Hughes
The journal is a forum for discussion and analysis on how forms of violence and exploitation harm the dignity and health of individuals, the integrity and security of communities, and the strength and character of nations. Topics include human trafficking, sexual violence and exploitation, domestic violence and forced labor, reproductive exploitation and trafficking, gender identity, and women's experiences in prison and in armed or social conflicts. When you publish in Dignity you reach an international audience. Since Dignity started publishing in 2016, over 417,000 copies of articles have been accessed in over 200 countries. The top 25 articles have been viewed from 4500 to over 17,000 times. Published articles are freely available to the public. There is no fee for publishing an article. If you want to write a book or media review about a documentary or film, please contact me.
This project used a mixed methodology of both qualitative and quantitative research methods over the course of the decade in order to gain a more holistic view of the survivors’ stories. The data obtained from the research was fed back to the NGOs who were supporting the participants and they have found it valuable to adapt and evolve their aftercare programs to more precisely be tailored to the individual needs of each victim. The results were also presented in technical documents to Government policy makers, UN agencies, academic institutes and other international NGOs. This special edition of Dignity is another attempt to get the information out to the global abolition movement. A primary challenge was to maintain contact with the survivors over such a long period but the fact that this was achieved in a complex environment shows that it can be done and is worth it for all involved.
Now, we are broadening the scope of our publication to include articles and discussions on topics that are crucial for us to address through our scholarly publishing. We want to publish articles that report on and analyze the following topics, such as:
Reproductive violence and exploitation, such as surrogacy, forced abortions, forced pregnancies, sex-selected abortions, and baby selling;
Traditional harmful practices, such as female genital mutilation and child marriage;
Domestic violence, revenge attacks on women, and femicide;
Forced labor, economic exploitation, and property theft;
The debate about biological sex and gender identity, and sex-based rights versus gender based rights;
The experiences of migrant, immigrant, and refugee women and children; and
The growth of authoritarian political and social movements and how they are impacting women and girls’ rights and lives.
Please consider submitting an article to Dignity (https://digitalcommons.uri.edu/dignity).
Donna M Hughes, Editor-in-Chief (dignityjournal@gmail.com)
Vol 6, Issue 2, 2021
The journal is a forum for discussion and analysis on how forms of violence and exploitation harm the dignity and health of individuals, the integrity and security of communities, and the strength and character of nations. Topics include human trafficking, sexual violence and exploitation, domestic violence and forced labor, reproductive exploitation and trafficking, gender identity, and women's experiences in prison and in armed or social conflicts. When you publish in Dignity you reach an international audience. Since Dignity started publishing in 2016, over 417,000 copies of articles have been accessed in over 200 countries. The top 25 articles have been viewed from 4500 to over 17,000 times. Published articles are freely available to the public. There is no fee for publishing an article. If you want to write a book or media review about a documentary or film, please contact me.
This project used a mixed methodology of both qualitative and quantitative research methods over the course of the decade in order to gain a more holistic view of the survivors’ stories. The data obtained from the research was fed back to the NGOs who were supporting the participants and they have found it valuable to adapt and evolve their aftercare programs to more precisely be tailored to the individual needs of each victim. The results were also presented in technical documents to Government policy makers, UN agencies, academic institutes and other international NGOs. This special edition of Dignity is another attempt to get the information out to the global abolition movement. A primary challenge was to maintain contact with the survivors over such a long period but the fact that this was achieved in a complex environment shows that it can be done and is worth it for all involved.
Now, we are broadening the scope of our publication to include articles and discussions on topics that are crucial for us to address through our scholarly publishing. We want to publish articles that report on and analyze the following topics, such as:
Reproductive violence and exploitation, such as surrogacy, forced abortions, forced pregnancies, sex-selected abortions, and baby selling;
Traditional harmful practices, such as female genital mutilation and child marriage;
Domestic violence, revenge attacks on women, and femicide;
Forced labor, economic exploitation, and property theft;
The debate about biological sex and gender identity, and sex-based rights versus gender based rights;
The experiences of migrant, immigrant, and refugee women and children; and
The growth of authoritarian political and social movements and how they are impacting women and girls’ rights and lives.
Please consider submitting an article to Dignity (https://digitalcommons.uri.edu/dignity).
Donna M Hughes, Editor-in-Chief (dignityjournal@gmail.com)
Vol 6, Issue 2, 2021
1) Victims were trafficked to Rhode Island because of an actual or perceived environment of tolerance of prostitution
2) Mothers of victims were involved in finding their daughters on online prostitution advertising sites sites and making police reports that initiated investigations
3) Victims were identified and reported to police by educated professionals and aware citizens
4) Victims of sex trafficking were often runaway or missing teens
5) Traffickers used online prostitution sites to advertise victims of sex trafficking
6) The credibility of a domestic worker victim of forced labor differed between judges
7) Sex buyers were not arrested in connection to any of the sex trafficking cases
This panel will present the findings of original research done by the five authors during the Spring 2014 on human trafficking cases in Rhode Island from 2009-2013. Sources for analysis of these cases include: police reports, witness statements, court documents and print and TV media reports.
Between 2009 and 2013, there have been six cases of sex trafficking and one case of forced labor identified and prosecuted in Rhode Island by Federal and State authorities. This presentation will characterize the cases, including: background of the victims, how the victims were recruited, how the victims were exploited, how the cases were identified by the police, and the outcomes of the prosecutions.
The description and analyses of these sex trafficking and forced labor cases in Rhode Island reveal that slavery—in the form of human trafficking—still exists today.
1) Victims were trafficked to Rhode Island because of an actual or perceived environment of tolerance of prostitution
2) Mothers of victims were involved in finding their daughters on online prostitution advertising sites sites and making police reports that initiated investigations
3) Victims were identified and reported to police by educated professionals and aware citizens
4) Victims of sex trafficking were often runaway or missing teens
5) Traffickers used online prostitution sites to advertise victims of sex trafficking
6) The credibility of a domestic worker victim of forced labor differed between judges
7) Sex buyers were not arrested in connection to any of the sex trafficking cases
why we need women in leadership positions for the success of democracy in the Middle East and
Iran.
For years, analysts have studied sex trafficking to determine the best way to combat this modern form of slavery. Today, a consensus is forming among advocates and law enforcement that to combat sex trafficking, the focus has to be on men who buy sex as much as on the pimps who recruit and enslave the victims.
Recently, an unpublished paper by two professors claiming that decriminalized prostitution benefited the population of Rhode Island has received national media coverage.
Parliamentary Assembly “Prostitution, trafficking and modern slavery in Europe”, and the (Honeyball) Resolution of the European Parliament, “Sexual exploitation and prostitution
and its impact of gender equality”, both of which recommended by overwhelming majorities the approach of addressing demand as best legislative practice throughout the European Union.
eliminate prostitution."
We do this on the basis of deep and systematic expertise in researching the dynamics of prostitution and the sex industry, trafficking and violence against women. Our research draws on contemporary evidence, on historical and philosophical inquiry, and importantly on the testimony of survivors of the prostitution system. Many of us have worked directly with prostituted women. We have individual and collective links with a wide variety of organisations working for the abolition of prostitution as an institution of gender inequality and exploitation."
Still, we are profoundly troubled by the placements of several countries in the 2006 Trafficking in Persons Report tier rankings.
Czech Republic may be planning to legalize prostitution. We believe that such
action would be a terrible mistake for the country as a whole and, in particular,
for the women and children of the Eastern Europe region who will be victims
of the Czech sex trade.
and breadth of its destruction and misery to Apartheid, Communism, and the African Slave Trade of
centuries past. This great evil is no respecter of the innate, God-given dignity of humanity. It holds the
ideals of universal human rights, the rule of law, civil society, and democracy in contempt. Its only
loves are greed, power, perversion of pleasure, and death. For all those among the innocent, the weak,
and the vulnerable, it is the great equal opportunity exploiter.
We, the undersigned individuals and organizations, are united against the violence and exploitation caused by the multi-billion dollar sex industry. Each day in our work, we encounter victims of pornography, trafficking, and prostitution."
She met with President George W. Bush and a handful of cabinet members and congressional leaders in the Oval Office. Hughes, a leading international researcher on trafficking of women and children, contributed to the passage of the act as well as the three bills that preceded it.
"With each act we have advanced the anti-human trafficking movement in the U.S. and around the world," says the respected researcher and advocate.
Trafficking has an astounding number of victims. Citing data provided by the United Nations, Hughes says about 4 million people are trafficked annually either in their countries or across international borders.
The URI professor adds that of the approximately 15,000 foreign victims trafficked into the U.S. each year, about 70 percent of them are women and children from East Asia, Latin America, Eastern Europe, and Africa.
Hughes says the numbers don't represent the full scope of the problem because many victims are often fearful or unable to come forward.
To learn more about Hughes' vital work on this bill go to uri.edu/news/releases/index.php?id=4714.
recently met with former President George W. Bush in the Oval Office as he signed new
legislation regarding sex trafficking into law in one of his final acts.