Letter: Professors correct reporter's errors
Issue date: 3/10/10 Section: Editorial/Opinion
3/10/10 - To the Cigar,
Usually we are willing to let the Cigar's inaccuracies in reporting go, but the misquoting and misattribution in the March 9 article "URI professors talk women's global issues" is too egregious to let go uncorrected.
First, for the record, as was clearly stated to the reporter, Donna Hughes' talk on "Sex-Trafficking" is scheduled for April 15 not March 18. It will be 2-3:15 p.m. in the Multicultural Center's Hardge Forum.
As for the rest of the reporting, to claim that the main insight Lisberger or the movie provided is that there's a "lack of peace in the world" attests only to the writer's blindness about something that's so obvious it goes without saying.
Also, Lisberger did not focus on sex trafficking as the only problem plaguing women in the world or in this country. Lisberger talked about lack of access, resources, representation and equal pay.
What Lisberger wishes she'd made clear to the reporter is that wars decimate infrastructures, creating situations where decimated countries need money they don't have to rebuild. Their lack of money to rebuild ends up creating loan situations where they need to take money away from, among other things, social and health services, education, food production and security, all of which disproportionately impacts and impoverishes women.
Also, for the record, Hughes, an expert on human and sex trafficking, offered the insights about trafficking statistics, including the figure that 15,000 people are trafficked into the US each year, 80 percent of which are women and children trafficked for sex.
Hughes did not say, "as long as Americans are fighting wars on foreign territory, humanity is setting women of the host region up for sexual violations. Hughes described a soldier's 'rest and relaxation' time as a period where local women are prostituted for the benefit of the soldier."
In fact, she specifically said that was not happening in Iraq and Afghanistan. She did not criticize the wars in Iraq or Afghanistan. As a result of anti-sex trafficking work she has been involved in, the U.S. military has profoundly changed its policy.
Usually we are willing to let the Cigar's inaccuracies in reporting go, but the misquoting and misattribution in the March 9 article "URI professors talk women's global issues" is too egregious to let go uncorrected.
First, for the record, as was clearly stated to the reporter, Donna Hughes' talk on "Sex-Trafficking" is scheduled for April 15 not March 18. It will be 2-3:15 p.m. in the Multicultural Center's Hardge Forum.
As for the rest of the reporting, to claim that the main insight Lisberger or the movie provided is that there's a "lack of peace in the world" attests only to the writer's blindness about something that's so obvious it goes without saying.
Also, Lisberger did not focus on sex trafficking as the only problem plaguing women in the world or in this country. Lisberger talked about lack of access, resources, representation and equal pay.
What Lisberger wishes she'd made clear to the reporter is that wars decimate infrastructures, creating situations where decimated countries need money they don't have to rebuild. Their lack of money to rebuild ends up creating loan situations where they need to take money away from, among other things, social and health services, education, food production and security, all of which disproportionately impacts and impoverishes women.
Also, for the record, Hughes, an expert on human and sex trafficking, offered the insights about trafficking statistics, including the figure that 15,000 people are trafficked into the US each year, 80 percent of which are women and children trafficked for sex.
Hughes did not say, "as long as Americans are fighting wars on foreign territory, humanity is setting women of the host region up for sexual violations. Hughes described a soldier's 'rest and relaxation' time as a period where local women are prostituted for the benefit of the soldier."
In fact, she specifically said that was not happening in Iraq and Afghanistan. She did not criticize the wars in Iraq or Afghanistan. As a result of anti-sex trafficking work she has been involved in, the U.S. military has profoundly changed its policy.
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