Tell Village Voice Media to Stop Child Sex Trafficking on Backpage.com

by Amanda Kloer · 2010-09-02 07:00:00 UTC
Topics:

Craigslist may be the most famous facilitator of online child sex trafficking these days, but Backpage.com, owned by Village Voice Media, is working to catch up. In the past week alone, two human trafficking operations were busted for selling teens on Backpage.com. It's time to tell Village Voice Media and Backpage.com that facilitating and profiting from child sex trafficking is not acceptable.

Earlier this week a Georgia man was arrested for pimping two 17-year-old girls around the Nashville area. Detectives responded to a suspicious ad on Backpage and drove to a motel. There, they found the teens and their 37-year-old pimp, as well as a laptop computer, likely used to post the online advertising. Just four days prior to that, four people in Denver were arrested for forcing a teen girl into prostitution. They also advertised her sexual services, including semi-nude pictures, on Backpage. And last year, a South Dakota couple was arrested for selling underage girls for sex on .... wait for it ... Backpage.com yet again. Sorry Village Voice, but it looks like child sex trafficking on one of your websites is a disturbing trend.

Backpage's terms of use, of course, prohibit advertising for illegal commercial sex acts or exploiting minors, but both are happening anyway in Nashville, Denver, and Sioux City. And like Craigslist, Backpage and their parent company Village Voice Media are doing little to prevent the sale of children or trafficked adults on their site. Village Voice Media has a duty to ensure that young girls aren't being abused in the commercial sex industry with help from their website, and that they aren't facilitating human trafficking.

Online classified sites like Backpage.com, Craigslist, and others are quickly becoming some of the most common places children are sold for sex. These companies have tremendous power to prevent the sexual exploitation of minors online. However, vast amounts of money are to be made in the adult services advertising industry, giving companies few incentives to tighten controls and safeguards against pimps selling kids. That's where you come in. Pressure from online classified users can motivate companies like Village Voice Media to clean up their online classified and take critical steps to protecting children. So take one minute, write a letter to Village Voice Media, and take a stand for exploited children.

Photo credit: Saemel Trip

Amanda Kloer is a Change.org Editor and has been a full-time abolitionist in several capacities for seven years. Follow her on Twitter @endhumantraffic
PREVIOUS STORY:
U.K. "Opts Out" of E.U. Anti-Trafficking Efforts
NEXT STORY:
Today is National Human Trafficking Awareness Day, how are you going to take action?

COMMENTS (16)

    Comment Policy

    · All fields are required to comment.

    [X]

    Comments on Change.org are meant for further exploration and evaluation of the campaign on Change.org. To that end, we welcome constructive comments. However, we reserve the right to delete comments which, as determined solely in our discretion: (1) are offensive, abusive, or off-topic; (2) include content solely intended to personally attack the campaign creator, (3) are designed to subvert or hijack comment threads rather than contribute to them; and/or (4) violate our terms of service and/or privacy policy. Repeat offenders may be permanently removed from the site at our discretion. Please also be advised that: (A) we do not actively curate and/or monitor in any manner whatsoever the comments made on the Change.org platform, and (B) the creator of each campaign on Change.org may remove any comment at her/his/its discretion.