"It's a great first step"
By Ellen Wulfhorst
NEW YORK, Feb 28 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Anti-trafficking activists on Wednesday welcomed a move in the U.S. Congress to fight the trade, saying the online world was rife with "how-to" videos for sex traffickers.
The bill - which passed the House of Representatives on Tuesday - would make it easier for states and sex-trafficking victims to sue social media networks, advertisers and others that fail to keep exploitative material off their platforms.
"It's a great first step," Jerome Elam, head of the Trafficking in America Task Force, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. "We have been fighting for so long."
The legislation is a result of years of law-enforcement lobbying for a crackdown on Backpage.com, a huge website which is used for sex advertising.
A spokeswoman for Backpage declined to comment on the videos or the legislation, which will head next to the Senate, where similar legislation has gained substantial support.
Backpage has said it is hosting content, not creating it, and is protected from liability by a federal law protecting free speech. The company has been hit by lawsuits saying it promotes trafficking in its ads.
Each year, some 100,000 to 300,000 children are at risk of being trafficked for commercial sex in the United States, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.
"I hope this bill gets us closer to survivor justice and ensuring traffickers and their business associates (looking at you, Backpage) are held accountable," said Andrea Powell, head of FAIR Girls anti-trafficking group, in a statement.
"I know it will."
Activists said videos were freely available online that help sex traffickers use cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin to pay anonymously for online advertisements on Backpage.
Earlier this week The Sunday Times newspaper in Britain said that videos on the YouTube website showed how to buy Backpage.com ads with bitcoin and other credits.
YouTube was not immediately available for comment. The Times said the most-viewed of the videos had been taken down.
"These YouTube videos showing how to use bitcoin for Backpage are 'how-tos' for human traffickers," Taina Bien-Aime, executive director of the Coalition Against Trafficking in Women
"Backpage makes it easier for traffickers and pimps to use their site by accepting payments through bitcoin and other means of payment, such as retail gift cards."
Visa Inc , MasterCard Inc and American Express Co have banned their credit cards from being used to pay for ads on Backpage.
Absent credit cards, Backpage relies heavily on bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, said Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr.
"Without cryptocurrencies, the site would be relegated to using unreliable processors as a last resort," Vance testified last month before a Congressional subcommittee.
Some campaigners say while the videos are disturbing, they make little difference to criminals.
"That horse got out of the barn a long time ago," Nita Belles, founder of the anti-trafficking group In Our Backyard, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
"I think the people that are doing trafficking ... they probably already know."
Last December, more than 7,000 prostitution advertisements were posted on Backpage for Manhattan alone, Vance said.
(Reporting by Ellen Wulfhorst, Editing by Robert Carmichael and Katy Migiro. Please credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers humanitarian news, women's rights, trafficking, property rights, climate change and resilience. Visit http://news.trust.org)
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