RHODE ISLAND needs a good prostitution law to halt the metastasizing problems of prostitution and sex trafficking. The growing number of spas and clubs are sordid destinations for foreign women and teens from around the Northeast.

To address this problem, both the House and the Senate have passed bills they claim “close the loophole.” But the competing bills are profoundly different in their probable effectiveness.

Contrary to the claim made by Senators Paul Jabour (D.-Providence) and Michael McCaffrey (D.-Warwick) in their Aug. 31 Commentary piece, the Senate bill does not “close the loophole.” It officially places prostitution in the category of laws that are less serious, with token penalties.

The House bill, sponsored by Rep. Joanne Giannini (D.-Providence), creates a basic, traditional law against prostitution. It makes prostitution a misdemeanor, which is the minimum criminal offense necessary for police to investigate the serious crimes involved such as organized crime and the sexual exploitation of children.

At the urging of women’s groups, the House bill includes a provision that grants immunity from prosecution to victims of trafficking. This makes it the most victim-sensitive prostitution law in the country.

The Senate bill, sponsored by Senator Jabour, further weakens our prostitution laws. It repeals important laws against recruiting and transporting people for prostitution — pimping offenses. According to Robert Flores, former federal prosecutor, the Senate bill will “encourage pimps” and be “their ticket to unrestrained growth in the use of people as objects to be used, rented by the hour or act, and discarded when they become too sick or unattractive to be useful.”

The Senate bill creates a civil violation for prostitution, the equivalent of a traffic citation. The penalty for the first offense is a donation to the crime victims’ fund. This is not a legitimate prostitution law. Numerous law-enforcement groups have condemned the Senate bill, saying it will let prostitution and sex trafficking grow, not reduce them.

In contrast, the House bill has broad support from the Rhode Island attorney general, the state police, the Police Chiefs’ Association, Governor Carcieri, Bishop Tobin of the Providence Diocese and numerous Protestant churches, The Providence Journal, the Rhode Island Catholic, Prevent Child Abuse-Rhode Island, and Citizens Against Trafficking.

Anti-trafficking experts and victims’ service groups from around the country have written to support the House bill, including: the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, Covenant House, the former head of the U.S. Department of Justice, the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, a former senior advisor on trafficking at the U.S. State Department, and the current U.S. ambassador to combat human trafficking.

The Senate bill is supported by . . . no one. It has no public letters of support from any law-enforcement agency, religious group, anti-trafficking organization or service provider. Its only defenders are a few recalcitrant senators who jammed through their peculiar bill late at night in the last few days of the Senate session.

With the passage of the House bill, Rhode Island will have a fresh start for law enforcement to vigorously investigate prostitution and sex trafficking, create new policies for equitable enforcement, look into new programs for rehabilitation and restorative justice that have been implemented in other states, and allow our state to participate in national initiatives to track down sexual predators and rescue victims.

In the words of The Rhode Island Catholic: “This shameful scourge must end.” The independent spirit of Rhode Island and the spirit in every woman are diminished by this flaw in the law. The House bill has the necessary provisions to do that.

The stonewalling by a few senators must end.

Donna M. Hughes is co-founder of Citizens Against Trafficking and is a professor of women’s studies at the University of Rhode Island.