Donna M. Hughes

Donna M. Hughes
Born	1954 (age 61–62)
Nationality	American
Fields	Women's studies
Institutions	University of Rhode Island, Eleanor M. and Oscar M. Carlson Endowed Chair, Women's Studies Program University of Bradford Pennsylvania State University
Alma mater	Pennsylvania State University (Ph.D., Genetics, 1990)
Known for	Research and writing on human trafficking, sexual exploitation, and sexual slavery
External video Dana Shugar Colloquium Lectures in Gender & Women's Studies: Presented at the Human Trafficking Conference, University of Nebraska-Lincoln Analysis of Human Trafficking Cases in Rhode Island 2009-2013 via YouTube[1]

Donna M. Hughes (born 1954) is professor and Eleanor M. and Oscar M. Carlson Endowed Chair of the Women's Studies Program at the University of Rhode Island,^[2] a leading international researcher on human trafficking,^[3] and also sits on the editorial board of Sexualization, Media, and Society.^[4] She is frequently consulted by governments and non-governmental organizations on policy related to women's human rights, particularly on trafficking of women and girls for sexual exploitation. She has testified before the U.S. House International Relations Committee, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, the Moscow Duma, and the Czech Parliament.

Hughes has written extensively on the prevalence of these issues of exploitation of women within Islamic Fundamentalism.^[5]

Biography

Hughes was raised on a farm in central Pennsylvania. She later attended Pennsylvania State University, earning degrees in animal science before earning a PhD in genetics in 1990.^[6]

While a student, she started volunteering at a rape crisis center and battered women’s shelter. For several years, she staffed the abuse hotline and co-facilitated support groups for adult survivors of child sexual abuse. During this time, she started to read feminist analyses of violence against women, particularly sexual violence and exploitation. Hughes writes that she began to feel emotional and cognitive dissonance between her scientific studies and the feminist activist work she was doing. Initially an instructor in both genetics and women's studies, an increasingly critical view of what she felt was the disconnected nature of science led her to focus on women's studies.^[6]

Hughes later served as a lecturer on women's studies at University of Bradford, UK, between 1994 and 1996, before moving on to a full professorship at University of Rhode Island, where she holds the Eleanor M. and Oscar M. Carlson Endowed Chair in Women's Studies. She has also served as Education and Research Coordinator for the Coalition Against Trafficking in Women.^[7]

Hughes is a co-founder with Melanie Shapiro of Citizens Against Trafficking.

Research, Teaching, and Scholarship

Hughes is a leading international researcher on human trafficking. She has completed research on the trafficking of women and girls for sexual exploitation in several countries, including the United States, Russia, Ukraine, and Korea. 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.

Additionally, she was the first to publish research and analysis on the role of the Internet in facilitating sexual exploitation and trafficking of women and girls, and on the mail-order bride industry. She has also written extensively on women's rights in the Islamic world. Hughes has also published several articles on the role of women in science and technology.^[3][6]

Her research has been supported by the U.S. State Department, the National Institute of Justice, the National Science Foundation, the Association of American Colleges and Universities, the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation, the International Organization for Migration, the Council of Europe, the Coalition Against Trafficking in Women, the Rhode Island Board of Governors for Higher Education, University of Rhode Island Foundation, the University of Rhode Island Council for Research, and the University of Bradford, UK.

Honors

Activism and views

She is one of the leading advocates of the “abolitionist” view on human trafficking and sexual exploitation. She is seen by many as a key figure linking the feminist and social conservative movements against sexual exploitation and all forms of human trafficking.^[9][10] Hughes has received criticism from sex workers' rights activists^[11] for her view that laws against sexual exploitation are necessary to combat human trafficking and sexual slavery,^[12] and what many see as personal attacks against other academics and activists who support decriminalization of prostitution.^{[13][14][15][16][17]}

Hughes suggested that government funded HIV prevention programs should check that sex workers were not victims of abuse, rather than simply hand out condoms. In 2002 she went before the House Committee on International Relations to report several harm-reduction programs that had received US funding, carried out by NGOs such as Médecins Sans Frontières, EMPOWER Thailand, International Human Rights Law Group, and the Dutch anti-trafficking organization La Strada.^[18] On April 9, 2003, she spoke before the Senate subcommittee on East Asian and Pacific Affairs "There are billions of dollars being spent on HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment, and a significant portion is directed for prevention in high risk groups such as women and children in prostitution. There should be appropriate restrictions or requirements on how aid organizations and/or personnel respond when they suspect that anyone they come in contact with is abused, exploited, or enslaved."^[19] Due to her conflation of all forms of prostitution with sex slavery, the changes she helped to bring about applied even to harm reduction programs that worked with under-served women in prostitution.^[20]

Hughes, in her efforts against sex trafficking and prostitution, has received support from Princeton scholar Robert P. George.^[21]

Prostitution in Rhode Island controversy

From 2006-2009, Hughes was a leading figure in the campaign to end the decriminalized status of indoor prostitution in Rhode Island,^[13][22][23] so that police could conduct anti-sex trafficking investigations. She is a founding member of the Rhode Island group, Citizens Against Trafficking (CAT) in 2009. The initial legislative battles over indoor prostitution are documented in the 2009 documentary film Happy Endings?, in which Hughes appears, speaking at a community forum on human trafficking and testifying before the state legislature to change the prostitution law.^[24]

In September 2009, Hughes wrote several opinion pieces in the Providence Journal supporting a version of the legislation with stronger penalties for prostitution and taking the Rhode Island State Senate to task for what she viewed as its de facto support for continuing decriminalization of prostitution.^[13][25] This version of the bill was signed into law in November 2009.^[26] Several Rhode Island State Senators wrote editorials disputing Hughes claim that they had kept indoor prostitution legal, with Senator Charles Levesque taking Hughes to task for, in his view, providing a highly distorted reading of the legislation passed by the RI Senate.^[27][28]

Soon after the Rhode Island prostitution law hearings, Hughes was involved in a controversy surrounding the opening of the Center for Sexual Pleasure and Health (CSPH), a sexual education center in Pawtucket, Rhode Island organized by Megan Andelloux, a sex educator who had testified before the Rhode Island Senate in opposition to criminalizing indoor prostitution. Supporters of Andelloux claim that in September 2009, the opening of the CSPH was blocked after an email was sent by Hughes to Pawtucket city council members (stating, "Hello, A center for 'sexual rights' and 'sexual pleasure' is opening in Pawtucket"),^{[29][30][31][32]} also citing remarks made about Andelloux in an earlier Providence Journal editorial by Hughes,^{[13][14][15][32]} as well as in a bulletin on the Citizens Against Trafficking website.^[32][33] A 6-month zoning battle followed with the city of Pawtucket; the CSPH was eventually allowed to open in early 2010.^[32]

A March 2010 editorial in the Providence Journal stated that Hughes and Citizens Against Trafficking co-founder Melanie Shapiro have faced threatening remarks on various internet forums from patrons of massage parlors in retaliation for their role in banning indoor prostitution in Rhode Island.^[34]

Selected bibliography

Books

• Hughes, Donna M.; Roche, Claire M., eds. (1999). Making the harm visible: global sexual exploitation of women and girls: speaking out and providing services. Kingston, Rhode Island: Coalition Against Trafficking in Women. ISBN 9780967085708. 
• Hughes, Donna M.; Raymond, Janice G.; Gomez, Carol (March 2001). Sex trafficking of women in the United States: international and domestic trends. Kingston, Rhode Island: Coalition Against Trafficking in Women.  Pdf.
• Hughes, Donna M.; Stoner Jr., James Reist (2010). The social costs of pornography: a collection of papers. Princeton, New Jersey: Witherspoon Institute. ISBN 9780981491134. 

Chapters in books

• Hughes, Donna (1999), "The internet and the global prostitution industry", in Klein, Renate; Hawthorne, Susan, Cyberfeminism: connectivity, critique and creativity, North Melbourne: Spinifex Press, pp. 157–184, ISBN 9781875559688.  Preview.
• Hughes, Donna; Mladjenovic, Lepa (2000), "Feminist resistance to war and violence in Serbia", in Waller, Marguerite; Rycenta, Jennifer, Frontline feminisms: women, war, and resistance, New York: Garland Publishing, pp. 241–270, ISBN 9780415932394.  Preview.
• Hughes, Donna (2003), "Changing a masculinist culture: women in science, engineering, and technology", in Morgan, Robin, Sisterhood is forever: the women's anthology for a new millennium, New York, New York: Washington Square Press, pp. 393–400, ISBN 9780743466271.  Details.
• Hughes, Donna (2004), "The use of new communication technologies for sexual exploitation of women and children", in Whisnant, Rebecca; Stark, Christine, Not for sale feminists: resisting prostitution and pornography, North Melbourne, Victoria: Spinifex Press, pp. 38–55, ISBN 9781876756499.  Preview. Text.

Journal articles

• Hughes, Donna M.; Clark, Andrew G. (November 1988). "Analysis of the genetic structure of life history of drosophila melanogaster using recombinant extracted lines". Evolution (Society for the Study of Evolution via JSTOR) 42 (6): 1309–1320. doi:10.2307/2409014. JSTOR 4316151. 
• Hughes, Donna M. (October 1991). "Transforming science and technology: has the elephant yet flicked its trunk?". NWSA Journal (Johns Hopkins University Press via JSTOR) 3 (3): 382–401. JSTOR 4316151.  Pdf.
• Hughes, Donna; Mladjenović, Lepa (January 1995). "Feminist organizing in Serbia, 1990-1994". Canadian Women's Studies (Inanna Publications and Education Inc.) 16 (1): 95–97.  Pdf.
• Hughes, Donna M.; Mladjenović, Lepa; Mršević, Zorica (November 1995). "Feminist resistance in Serbia". European Journal of Women's Studies (Sage) 2 (4): 509–532. doi:10.1177/135050689500200406.  Pdf.
• Hughes, Donna (January 1996). "Sex tours via the internet". Agenda: Empowering women for gender equity, special issue: Women's Sexuality (Taylor and Francis co-published with UNISA Press) 12 (28): 71–76. doi:10.1080/10130950.1996.9675502.  View online.
• Hughes, Donna M.; Foster, Kathleen (January–April 1996). "War, nationalism, and rape: women respond by opening a Centre Against Sexual Violence in Belgrade, Serbia". Women's Studies International Forum (Elsevier) 19 (1-2): 183–184. doi:10.1016/0277-5395(95)00072-0.  Pdf.
• Hughes, Donna (1997). "Sex tours via the internet". Feminista! The Journal of Feminist Construction 1 (7). 
• Hughes, Donna (1997). "Trafficking and sexual exploitation on the internet". Feminista! The Journal of Feminist Construction 1 (8). 
• Hughes, Donna M.; Mršević, Zorica (April 1997). "Violence against women in Belgrade, Serbia: SOS Hotline 1990-1993". Violence Against Women (Sage) 3 (2): 101–128. doi:10.1177/1077801297003002002.  Pdf.
• Hughes, Donna (January 2000). "'Welcome to the rape camp': sexual exploitation and the internet in Cambodia". Journal of Sexual Aggression (Taylor and Francis) 6 (1–2): 29–51. doi:10.1080/13552600008413308.  Available online. Pdf.
• Hughes, Donna (Spring 2000). "The 'Natasha' trade: the transnational shadow market of trafficking in women". Journal of International Affairs (The Trustees of Columbia University in the City of New York) 53 (2): 625–651.  Pdf. Also available as: In the shadows: promoting prosperity or undermining stability?
• Hughes, Donna (Spring–Summer 2000). "Scientific, feminist, and personal epistemologies: conflicts and opportunities". Women's Studies Quarterly, special issue: Building Inclusive Science (The Feminist Press) 28 (1–2): 305–312. JSTOR 40004462.  Via The Feminist Press. Text.
• Hughes, Donna; Denisova, Tatyana A. (March 2001). "Transnational political criminal nexus of trafficking in women in Ukraine". Trends in Organized Crime (Springer) 6 (3): 43–67. doi:10.1007/s12117-001-1005-7.  Pdf.
• Hughes, Donna (2002). "The use of new communications and information technologies for sexual exploitation of women and children". Hastings Women's Law Journal, symposium issue: Sexual Slavery: the Trafficking of Women and Girls into the United States for Sexual Exploitation (University of California, Hastings College of the Law) 13 (1): 129–148.  Pdf.
• Hughes, Donna (January 2004). "Prostitution online". Journal of Trauma Practice (Taylor and Francis) 2 (3-4): 115–132. doi:10.1300/J189v02n03_06.  Pdf.
• Hughes, Donna M. (September 2004). "The role of 'marriage agencies' in the sexual exploitation and trafficking of women from the former Soviet Union". International Review of Victimology (Sage) 11 (1): 49–71. doi:10.1177/026975800401100104.  Pdf.
• Hughes, Donna M.; Chon, Katherine Y.; Ellerman, Derek P. (September 2007). "Modern-day comfort women: the U.S. military, transnational crime, and the trafficking of women". Violence Against Women (Sage) 13 (9): 901–922. doi:10.1177/1077801207305218.  Pdf.
• Hughes, Donna M. (2008). "Combating sex trafficking: a perpetrator-focused approach". University of St. Thomas Law Journal (St. Thomas University School of Law) 6 (3): 28–53.  Pdf.
• Hughes, Donna M. (October 2014). "Trafficking in human beings in the European Union: gender, sexual exploitation, and digital communication technologies". Sage Open (Sage) 4 (4): 1–8. doi:10.1177/2158244014553585.  Pdf.

References

External links

• Donna M. Hughes, University of Rhode Island (Faculty page and publications)
• Donna M. Hughes publications list at National Review Online
• Citizens Against Trafficking (CAT) Bulletins

• See also Archive CAT Bulletins, June 2004 - July 2010.