New URI journal explores sexual exploitation

Sexual exploitation and violence are rampant throughout the world, and academics are rightly pushing the issue into the public eye through their research and articles. University of Rhode Island professor Donna M. Hughes is at the forefront of the movement with the launch of an online academic journal, “Dignity,” dedicated to publishing papers about sexual exploitation, violence and slavery. The journal is the first academic journal in the world to address global sexual exploitation and well on its way to success.

In December 2016, Professor of Gender and Women’s Studies Donna M. Hughes published the inaugural issue of the journal Dignity: A Journal on Sexual Exploitation and Violence as editor-in-chief. “There is no other scholarly journal that addresses sexual exploitation and violence and has an editorial position against forms of exploitation and violence,” Hughes said.

Dignity: A Journal on Sexual Exploitation and Violence

Journal of Community Safety and Well-Being

This article explores the sex industry in Canada as modern-day slavery and an ongoing violation of basic human rights. Some argue that the sex industry is something that women or children choose to do as a legitimate profession, and others argue that they are exploited and manipulated by other people for indebtedness, for clothing, food, shelter or to support substance or alcohol addictions. How should the laws around sex trafficking and sexual exploitation be designed? The government could be in a position to legally ensure dignity and human rights protection for those engaged in selling sex. This paper highlights the perspectives of survivors of the sex industry as they describe heart-wrenching experiences that include torture, physical threats, psychological fear, and manipulation. As the public discourse grows around this ongoing scourge, momentum for change is also growing. There have been numerous efforts to address, disrupt, and end this social scourge. Our awareness of moder...

Journal Inquirer Sep 25, 2008

Journalism Practice

Guest Editor Special Issue: Kamala Kempadoo

International Feminist Journal of Politics, 2018

Black Women’s Blueprint (BWB), a US-based civil and human rights organization, convened the first Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) addressing Black women’s and girls’ experiences with rape and sexual assault in the United States. Led by Black women survivors of rape and sexual assault, the TRC was held at the United Nations in New York City on 28 April–1 May 2016 as part of the UN’s International Decade of People of African Descent. The TRC applied an intersectional lens to expose the deep historical roots of sexual/ized violence against Black women, who still today suffer disproportionately high levels of rape and sexual violence but are less likely to have their cases prosecuted, especially if that perpetrator is a state official. In the following conversation, Farah Tanis, Executive Director of Black Women’s Blueprint and Chair of the Black Women’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, and Ericka Dixon, Policy Programs Director and TRC testifier, share findings from the Commission that they are currently writing up in the TRC’s final report. They discuss the legacies of chattel slavery, strategies and challenges in working towards systems of community accountability and safety, promoting healing for survivors, the strategic use of international human rights mechanisms and language to frame rape and sexual assault against Black women as rape-based torture in “the afterlife of slavery” (Hartman 2007, 6)—and, finally, how to practice self-care.

Nature

Artefacts made from stones, bones and teeth are fundamental to our understanding of human subsistence strategies, behaviour and culture in the Pleistocene. Although these resources are plentiful, it is impossible to associate artefacts to specific human individuals1 who can be morphologically or genetically characterized, unless they are found within burials, which are rare in this time period. Thus, our ability to discern the societal roles of Pleistocene individuals based on their biological sex or genetic ancestry is limited2–5. Here we report the development of a non-destructive method for the gradual release of DNA trapped in ancient bone and tooth artefacts. Application of the method to an Upper Palaeolithic deer tooth pendant from Denisova Cave, Russia, resulted in the recovery of ancient human and deer mitochondrial genomes, which allowed us to estimate the age of the pendant at approximately 19,000–25,000 years. Nuclear DNA analysis identifies the presumed maker or wearer o...