Senate Urges Elimination of Child Prostitution Website

On December 20, the Senate adopted, by voice vote, a resolution (S. Res. 439) expressing the sense of the Senate that Village Voice Media Holdings, LLC should eliminate the “adult entertainment” section of the classified advertising website Backpage.com.

The resolution, sponsored by Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), contains several findings, including:

• According to the Department of Justice, there was a 59 percent increase in identified victims of human trafficking worldwide between 2009 and 2010;
• According to the Department of Health and Human Services, human trafficking is the fastest growing criminal enterprise in the world;
• Experts estimate that up to 300,000 children are at risk of sexual exploitation each year in the United States;
• Experts estimate that the average female victim of sex trafficking is forced into prostitution for the first time between the ages of 12 and 14, and the average male victim of sex trafficking is forced into prostitution for the first time between the ages of 11 and 13;
• The Bureau of Justice Statistics found that 40 percent of incidents investigated by federally funded task forces on human trafficking between 2008 and 2010 involved prostitution of a child or the sexual exploitation of a child;
• According to the classified advertising consultant Advanced Interactive Media Group (AIM Group), Backpage.com is the leading United States website for prostitution advertising;
• The National Association of Attorneys General tracked more than 50 cases in which charges were filed against persons who were trafficking or attempting to traffic minors on Backpage.com;
• According to AIM Group, 80 percent of online prostitution advertising revenue for the month of February 2012 was attributed to Backpage.com;
• According to AIM Group, Backpage.com earned an estimated $26 million from prostitution advertisements between February 2011 and February 2012;
• Backpage.com vice president Carl Ferrer acknowledged to the National Association of Attorneys General that the company identifies more than 400 “adult entertainment” posts that may involve minors each month; and
• The actual number of “adult entertainment” posts on Backpage.com each month that involve minors may be far greater than 400.

The Senate supports “efforts of law enforcement agencies to provide training to law enforcement agents on how to identify victims of sex trafficking, investigate cases of sex trafficking, prosecute sex trafficking offenses, and rescue victims of sex trafficking,” and supports “services for trafficking victims provided by the federal, state, and local governments, and non-profit and faith-based organizations, including medical, legal, mental health, housing, and other social services.” The Senate “calls on Village Voice Media Holdings, LLC to act as a responsible global citizen and immediately eliminate the ‘adult entertainment’ section of the classified advertising website Backpage.com to terminate the website’s rampant facilitation of online sex trafficking.”