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

Please click on and sign:

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

Background | From Change

By the time Norman Barnes was picked up by Massachusetts state troopers, he had made $19,000 forcing a 15-year-old girl to have sex with up to 8 men a day for 10 days.

He couldn’t have done it without Backpage.com, a classified website owned by Village Voice Media.

Backpage.com is reported to be the nation’s #1 online platform for advertising sex with minors. A recent letter from 51 Attorneys General to Village Voice Media’s lawyers cites over 50 cases (in 22 states) of trafficking or attempted trafficking of minors for sex using the site. Although such use violates Backpage.com’s terms of service, the site continually fails to identify and remove ads selling sex with children.

Driven by the universal moral imperative to end child sex trafficking, a new multifaith action network called Groundswell has started a petition on Change.org.

Sign Groundswell’s petition now to shut down the adult services section of Backpage.com — the only effective way to end child sex trafficking on the site.

Village Voice Media executives are fully aware that their site is used as a platform for child sex trafficking, but have done close to nothing to stop it.

Instead, after executives were confronted by the Attorneys General, the Village Voice ran a shocking cover story ‘expose’ that smeared hard-working advocacy groups by presenting sensationally low (and poorly researched) statistics on child sex trafficking.

What the story didn’t mention is that Village Voice Media earns $22.7 million a year from its adult services ads on Backpage.com, which it may have to shut down completely (like Craigslist did last year after hearing from 10,000 Change.org members) to effectively prevent the site from being used as a platform for selling sex with children.

All Village Voice Media has done so far is throw up a smokescreen to try and hide how they’re providing a platform child sex trafficking on Backpage.com. Let Village Voice Media executives know that they can’t hide their complicity. Sign Groundswell’s petition to end child sex trafficking on Backpage.com now:

http://www.change.org/petitions/tell-village-voice-media-to-stop-child-sex-trafficking-on-backpagecom

Thanks for being a change-maker,

Amanda and the Change.org team

Vodpod videos no longer available.

The widget contains news and actions from multiple sources including Amnesty International, ACLU, Center For Missing and Exploited Children, New York Times, The Innocence Project, Human Rights Watch, and Polaris Human Trafficking; please use the scroll bar on the right to view more; use the dropdown button on the top right to view the individual feeds. These are automatically, continuously updated.

Vodpod videos no longer available.

For other resources on human trafficking and additional ways you can help, please visit the following:

• Polaris Project: Resources
• Polaris Project Action Center
• Hope For Justice: What You Can Do
• Polaris Project: Download Information on Human Trafficking in the US
• The A21 Campaign: 21 Ways To Help
• The A21 Campaign Resources
• UN.Gift : Global Initiative to Fight Human Trafficking
• NY Times Human Trafficking Section
• Free the Slaves: How You Can Help
• National Human Trafficking Resource Center

child sex trafficking
there is nothing worse
a dead end life
that ends up in an
early hearse
and village voice media
shame on you
look at the ads
that you put through
adult services does
not mean adults
being serviced
by the young
stop promoting
this tragedy
by advertising
this dung!!!

Karen Lyons Kalmenson