Hartford Advocate Exposes That Sex Ads Traffic Girls, Keeps Profiting From Ads

Earlier this month, the Hartford Advocate published a story about child sex trafficking in Connecticut, citing "pimp-paid sex ads in alternative newspapers like the Hartford Advocate" as part of the epidemic. Yet despite acting on the information that the sex ads in their own newspaper have been critical tools for child sex traffickers, the newspaper continues to profit from them. Will someone at the Hartford Advocate read their own exposé and stop accepting ads for what they have identified as child sex trafficking?

For five years, Dennis Paris trafficked girls and women into prostitution in Connecticut. Some of the girls he sold were as young as fourteen, just freshmen in high school. Paris also sold adult women whose heroin addictions he exploited in order to keep the money they earned for himself and prevent them from leaving prostitution. The details of the violence and coercion Paris used to control the women and girls he sold is detailed in the book The Berlin Turnpike, including the detail that Paris's favorite place to advertise for sex with his victims was the Hartford Advocate.

This detail was not lost on the Advocate, who recently published a long story about child sex trafficking in America, citing Paris's trial and the Advocate's own role as the publication where Paris advertised his victims. But while the news section of the paper stated that sex trafficking is "all over Connecticut" and that sex ads in the Hartford Advocate are one way teen sex trafficking is advertised, the ads section was running those exact sorts of sex ads, making profit for the paper.

Connecticut resident Tony Dakota is ready for this sort of hypocrisy in his hometown newspaper to end. That's why he launched a campaign asking the Hartford Advocate to stop accepting sex ads that facilitate child sex trafficking. Dakota points out that the tide is turning against sex advertising in classified ads, in part because of the strong link to human trafficking. Prominent newspapers including the L.A. Times and New York Times haven't accepted sex ads for years, and the Washington Post stopped printing such ads last year after being the targets of a grassroots campaign. Craigslist also shut down their famous sex ads section, and Backpage.com is now under fire for ignoring public pressure to pull their adult ads.

The tide of history is on Tony Dakota's side and the side of the Hartford-Advocate-as-important-news-source, but it's against the Hartford-Advocate-as-sex-trafficking-ad-profiteer. Will you join the winning team and ask the Hartford Advocate to abandon their sex trafficking ads?

Photo credit: karen_2020