In a Sept. 27 article, the Dayton Daily News examined court documents and police reports from across the region and discovered alleged sex traffickers in Ohio have used Backpage to sexually exploit women and children for their own financial gain.
But Village Voice said Backpage devotes considerable resources to combating illegal activities on its site, and the demands of the clergy are unreasonable.
“If someone is caught shipping contraband through the Post Office, we do not shut down the U.S. mail,” the company said in a prepared statement.
Online move to stop site’s adult content
Earlier this year, the New York-based Auburn Seminary launched a campaign to raise awareness of the role it says Backpage plays in facilitating child sex trafficking, said Isaac Luria, the organizing director of Groundswell, which is the social action initiative of Auburn.
He said 400 clergy, including 15 in Ohio, have banded together to urge Backpage to shut down its adult section completely. The group also started an online petition at Change.org, which has collected 73,000 signatures, that makes the same demand.
Backpage is a website that features classified advertisements for products, services, jobs and other things categorized by topic and region.
The site has an adult section that features ads for escorts, massages, sex chat rooms and other sensual activities. Dayton police officers routinely bust people who post ads in the adult section for prostitution, according to police reports.
But some women and teenagers whose sexual services are bought and sold on Backpage are not willing participants, but instead are sexual slaves, authorities said.
In April, Tipp City police arrested 33-year-old Toledo resident Rodney Brown after they learned he was holding 21-year-old Michigan resident Selma Hasanovic against her will and forcing her to have sex with strangers for money that he kept, police said.
Federal authorities said Brown allegedly used Backpage to find customers to have sex with Hasanovic.
Other sex traffickers in Ohio this year used Backpage to sell or attempt to sell sex with children to strangers on Backpage.
Citing these kinds of cases, Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine in August joined 46 other attorney generals from across the country to ask Backpage to produce evidence it was policing its site to crack down on trafficking.
Efforts insufficient
Luria said Backpage has tried to institute safeguards to protect against sex trafficking, but they are insufficient, and the only remedy is to scrap the entire adult section, similar to the action taken by Craigslist.
Under intense pressure from members of the public and state officials across the country, Craigslist closed its adult section last year, which in turn provided a boost to Backpage’s traffic.
Backpage is the leading website in the United States for prostitution advertising, and it generated almost $2.1 million from online escort and body-rub advertisements in September, according to estimates by the Aim Group.
Luria said he believes Village Voice is resisting demands for action because of the adult section is so profitable to the company.
“I think it’s about money, and they want to protect what they deem as important to keeping their business afloat, but there has got to be a way to run profitable businesses that do not necessarily endanger our children,” Luria said.
But Backpage has 123 employees who screen 20,000 ads each day and report suspicious postings to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. Ernie Allen, president and CEO of the center, praised Backpage for reporting more than 1,600 ads that they deemed suspicious.
In response to the request from the attorneys general, Village Voice said it shares the same concerns about trafficking as state officials, and it routinely assists law enforcement agencies in prosecuting criminals who misuse the site. The company also developed filters to detect improper uses .
Ultimately, Village Voice argues that ads posted in the adult section are legally protected free speech, and religious groups and governments cannot dictate how the business operates.
Contact this reporter at cfrolik@ daytondailynews.com.
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