This is an important column in Sunday's New York Times. Let me share the first two paragraphs:
IF prostitution of children is illegal, why is it that we allow an estimated 100,000 underage girls and boys to be sold for sex in America each year — many on a single American website, Backpage.com?
That’s a reflection of law enforcement priorities, but several brave girls who allege that they were pimped on Backpage are trying to change them. They are fighting back in lawsuits that could have far-reaching implications for sex trafficking in America.
Kristof will provide you with details of the lawsuit, and also how it is clear that Backpage.com is NOT interested in stopping the practice, for example:
the company requires numerically searchable numbers if you are selling a dog but allows scrambled numbers (Kristof uses the example of zero12-345-six78nine), allows payment by untraceable credit cards and Bitcoin, and hinders serious exploration of possible exploitation by flooding authorities with many examples the company knows are not real exploitation. Backpages refuses to use screening software "that might actually detect ads for underage girls."
Kristof also makes clear there is not an issue of prostitution per se - this is not a paid sexual transaction between consenting adults: some of the kids have been as young as 13.
There is a federal law suit.
Attorneys General from 48 out of 50 states and three territories (and it is embarrassing that it is not 50/50) states sent a letter to the company pleading with it to stop exploiting children
The issue deserves more attention than it gets.
And Kristof nails it with his close:
Americans rightly waxed indignant at the way the Roman Catholic Church or Penn State turned a blind eye to the sexual abuse of minors. But our entire society does the same thing.
Isn’t it time to stop?
Indeed.