According to experts, Rhode Island is becoming  a major hub for sex trafficking.

From the Providence Journal:

When most people think of slavery these days, “they think of the Civil War,” says Shanna Wells, director of the Rhode Island Commission on Women.

But in fact, said Wells, slavery is occurring now in neighborhoods around Rhode Island, in the form of the forced prostitution of women and girls — some runaways, some brought here from other countries. Their captors are attracted to Rhode Island, she said, because it is one of only two states that consider prostitution legal, as long as it occurs indoors between consenting adults.

“The word has gone out that Rhode Island is the place to come to to open your brothel,” said Donna M. Hughes, a University of Rhode Island professor who has studied international sex trafficking. “We are rapidly becoming the sex trafficking capital of the Northeast.”