BIO
Donna M. Hughes is a Professor at the University of Rhode Island (URI) in Gender and Women’s Studies Program and the Criminology and Criminal Justice Program. She holds the Eleanor M. and Oscar M. Carlson Endowed Chair in Women’s Studies.
Dr. Hughes conducts research on human trafficking, particularly the sexual exploitation and trafficking of women and girls. She has published research reports on Russia, Ukraine, and the European Union. She completed the first studies on the use of information technology for the trafficking of women and girls in 2001 and 2002.
Currently, she is working with undergraduate students to analyze prostitution and sex trafficking in Rhode Island. In 2014, three of her research students won the URI Excellence Award for Undergraduate Research in the Social Sciences and Humanities.
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 created new abolitionist policy or approach to sex trafficking in the United States.”
In 2016, she founded a peer-reviewed, academic journal Dignity: A Journal on Sexual Exploitation and Violence. She is the Editor-in-Chief.
This presentation was given at the 2019 Coalition to End Sexual Exploitation Global Summit. endexploitationsummit.com/
