Backpage.com

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.