Thirty-six prominent clergy took out a full-page New York Times advertisement Tuesday demanding that Village Voice Media discontinue a Web site used for the sex trafficking of girls and boys.
The ad featured a letter calling on the Village Voice company to immediately shut down the Adult section of its Web site where this activity is taking place. The clergy also launched a nationwide petition in partnership with Change.org’s more than one million members.
“Village Voice Media CEO Jim Larkin and his Board of Directors need to stop Backpage.com from serving as a platform for the sex trafficking of girls and boys immediately. For over a year, advocates have demanded action, but the responses they have been given are half-measures and delays. We are tired of Village Voice’s delay tactics,” said Rev. Dr. Katharine Henderson, president of Auburn Seminary. “The only way to end the sale of minors for sex on Backpage.com is by shutting down the Adult section for good.”
The newly formed multifaith coalition is made up of mainline Christians, Catholics, Jews, evangelical Christians, Muslims, Sikhs, Humanists and other moral and religious leaders. Groundswell, Auburn Seminary’s social action initiative, convened the group.
Arrests of adults using Backpage.com to sell minors for sex have been reported by the media in a number of states, including Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Kansas, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Mexico, Ohio, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Washington, and Wisconsin.
The National Association of Attorneys General has “tracked more than 50 instances, in 22 states over three years, of charges filed against those trafficking or attempting to traffic minors on Backpage.com,” it wrote in an August 31, 2011 letter to Backpage. Fifty-one Attorneys General have signed on to that letter. Access the letter from the Attorneys General here.
Backpage.com asserts it has put in place “effective measures” to prevent child prostitution from occurring on its Web site, yet it is still happening. According to the letter from the Attorneys General, even Backpage.com Vice President Carl Ferrer has admitted this, stating “the company identifies more than 400 ‘adult services’ posts every month that may involve minors.” The Attorneys General maintain that it is “very difficult to accurately detect underage human trafficking,” and therefore call on Backpage.com to “eradicate” child sex trafficking on its Web site by shutting down the Adult section. The clergy join them in this call.
“As a pastor I have seen the devastating effects of the sex trafficking of minors first hand. It is a moral abomination,” said the Rev. Otis Moss, III, Pastor of Trinity United Church of Christ. “My message to Village Voice Media is this: protect these young girls and boys by immediately taking down the Adult section of Backpage.com.”
Groundswell plans to rally additional clergy and Americans of moral commitment to sign a petition and join in its call to Village Voice Media. The clergy still welcome the opportunity to meet with the Board of Directors of Village Voice Media to discuss their concerns.
“We know there is much more to be done to end the sex trafficking of minors beyond what we’re asking of Village Voice Media,” said Valarie Kaur, Sikh-American activist and Director of Groundswell. “We need educational campaigns, robust law enforcement, and solutions to the poverty and abuse at the root of the practice. But we can do something right now to shut down a prominent commercial platform used for the sex trafficking of girls and boys.”
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