Advocates urge defeat of RI anti-prostitution bill

PROVIDENCE—State lawmakers should reject a bill banning indoor prostitution in Rhode Island - the only state besides Nevada where it’s legal - because the measure would harm victims of human trafficking, civil libertarians and a women’s group said Wednesday.

The state Senate faces a decision on whether to adopt legislation that would close a legal loophole that effectively bans prostitution in public but does not prohibit it in private. House lawmakers approved the bill last month.

A coalition of advocates including the state branch of the American Civil Liberties Union and the National Organization for Women warned at a State House news conference that targeting prostitutes will only victimize women forced to engage in prostitution by human traffickers.

“If you want to eradicate prostitution, you have to address the issues that lead women to engage in prostitution,“ said Andrea Ritchie, director of the Sex Workers Project at the Urban Justice Center in New York.

Law enforcement officials say they need a new prostitution statute to target businesses that pretend to be massage parlors but really are thinly veiled fronts for prostitution. Judges have dismissed criminal charges against women and their alleged managers because they offered undercover police officers cash indoors and in private.

To prosecute human traffickers, investigators sometimes need to arrest low-level prostitutes and pressure them to testify against higher-ups, State Police Col. Brendan Doherty said.

But opponents argue that prostitutes are unlikely to open up to police when they are being targeted as criminals.

“We believe these women need rehabilitation, not imprisonment and penalties,“ said Josephine Martell of the Rhode Island National Organization for Women.

The legislation sponsored by Rep. Joanne Giannini, D-Providence, would make engaging in or paying for prostitution a misdemeanor punishable by six months in prison and up to a $1,000 fine. Subsequent convictions would carry harsher penalties.

Prostitutes could avoid convictions if they were threatened with physical harm, held against their will or had their immigration documents or other legal papers stolen by pimps.

Giannini said maintaining the legal status quo will hurt women instead of protecting them.

“We’ve passed laws against human sex trafficking, but the laws aren’t enforceable as long as prostitution itself is legal indoors,“ she said in a written statement. “If we really care about the women who are the victims of prostitution and human trafficking, we need to shut down the industry.“

The future of Giannini’s bill remains unclear as lawmakers get closer to the end of their annual session, which typically wraps up in late June.

The Senate Judiciary Committee has not set a hearing on Giannini’s bill, but Sen. Michael McCaffrey, the committee chairman, said it will likely get a hearing before the end of the session. He could not say when it would be.