Activists to Backpage.com: Don't Traffick Kids at Super Bowl

As the 2011 Super Bowl approaches, tens of thousands of Change.org members are asking the Super Bowl Host Committee and the NFL to raise awareness about the child sex trafficking that will take place during the game. But another company also has the power to stop child sex trafficking during the big game -- because they're currently one of the biggest facilitators of the crime. That's why one organization is asking Backpage to shut down their escort services section before it's used to pimp kids in Texas during the Super Bowl and the rest of the year.

After Craigslist shut down their commercial sex ads last year, some of the advertisements for trafficked kids went away. But some migrated to other websites, especially Backpage.com. Now, Backpage has taken over Craigslist's dubious title of being the mainstream website with the most online sex ads for minors. And as CNN reporter Amber Lyons recently demonstrated, it's damn easy to get an escort ad for a child onto Backpage.com. The reporter recently posted an ad almost identical to one that was used to sell a 12-year-old girl in Maryland, using a photo of herself in a bikini at age 14.

The video of the responses from respondents is chilling. The calls started coming in four minutes after the ad was posted, which happened with no advanced screening process. And her young age, far from dissuading buyers, was a selling point. One man, in response to Lyon's claiming she's only seventeen said "that's good." Another pretended to be appalled that she was only 16, but agreed to buy sex with her as long as "no one needs to find out."

Village Voice Media, the parent company of Backpage.com, claims the site is implementing "a holistic plan centered around preventing criminal activity on our site.” But so far, that plan is about as air-tight as a fishing net, since sex trafficking victims have been advertised on the site across the country. After all, a reporter was able to post a picture of a 14-year-old girl and sell her for sex within minutes. A pimp with years of experience in selling young girls can easily do the same.

That's why human rights organization The Rebbecca Project is asking Backpage to shut down their escort services section, and to do it before this year's Super Bowl in Texas. Texas already has one of the biggest human trafficking problems in the country; the National Human Trafficking Hotline receives more calls from Texas than any other state. Add that to the anticipated spike in sex trafficking during major events, like the Super Bowl, and the recipe is one for human rights disaster. As one of the biggest facilitators of sex trafficking, Backpage could deny child sex traffickers a valuable resource if they shut down their escort ads before the event.

You can support The Rebbecca Project's campaign by asking Backpage.com to shut down their erotic ads before the Super Bowl, and by doing so help stop child sex trafficking online for Super Bowl XLV.

Photo credit: Samuel Koetz