So teenagers can strip after all!
So there is a nice loophole in Rhode Island law … where it seems that a 16 year old can work in a strip club as long as she has a work permit.
This loophole only came to light when the investigation of a 16 year old runaway girl working at Cheaters Gentlemen’s Club brought it forward. When they tried to put the club’s owner in jail they found out they couldn’t because of this law. While the law states that “anybody who employs a person under the age of 18 for prostitution whoring or any other lewd or indecent act can be thrown in prison” it seems that the term “lewd or indecent” is subjective and therefore makes it very difficult to send anyone to jail since it doesn’t stop a girl from stripping.
As you can imagine this has upset many and officials are hard at work at changing ordinances to prevent this from happening again.
I understand that some people were complaining because they felt this was unfair towards the girls. One argument was that this is an honest way for some of these young girls to support themselves without needing to commit a crime. While I can understand that to some extent, I can’t agree. As a mother of 2 almost teenage daughters, I would kill either one of them if they thought this was the only way in which they could support themselves.
What are you opinions on this?
