IT turns out that Craigslist is about a lot more than second-hand furniture or an apartment rental: Prosecutors charge that it’s a prime part of the modern slave trade.
The Web site has become one of the most effective (and free) tools for human traffickers to ply their hideous trade. Its former “erotic services” section has allegedly been a boon to the human scum who post children and women for sale.
Incidents like the ones involving “Craigslist killer” Philip Markoff and the New York radio reporter allegedly killed by a teenager who responded to a Craigslist ad are apparently just the tip of the iceberg.
Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan has referred to the Craigslist section then known as “erotic services” as an “Internet brothel.” Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin accuses it of being a significant source of child prostitution in her city.
In 2008, the attorneys general of 40 states charged that the site’s “erotic services” section was a veiled forum for prostitution and the trafficking of women and children for sexual exploitation. Last November, they got the site’s managers to agree to “act to deter and crack down on prostitution ads in its erotic services section.”
Craigslist changed the section’s name from “erotic services” to “adult services” and said it would monitor every ad in it. But some think the change has been largely cosmetic.
Mark P. Lagon, the executive director of the Polaris Project, a leading anti-slavery nonprofit, told me: “Our view is that Craigslist hasn’t proven it is doing anything different with ‘adult services’ yet. As a rough comparison, in February 2007 postings to “erotic services” were 16,000; July 2009 postings to “adult services” are roughly 13,000.”
Not very impressive.
Enter Thomas Dart, sheriff of Cook County, Ill., who’s suing Craigslist for facilitating prostitution. His March 2009 brief accuses the site of creating “a market for human trafficking.”
Dart cites terms such as “young and fresh,” “virgin,” and “new girl” as the online code words in ads that are actually pitching underage-sex “services.” The sheriff alleges that arrests made through Craigslist involve the pimping of children. The brief also cites a child-prostitution ring busted by the FBI whose pimps had posted more than 2,800 ads on Craigslist.
The lawsuit’s goals are more ambitious than the moves by the attorneys general: Dart wants Craigslist to cease hosting ads for sex services — a profitable line that the site has been loath to drop.
Dart’s effort has garnered enthusiastic support in the anti-trafficking world. Some 31 advocacy groups have signed an amicus brief in support of the lawsuit. Norma Ramos of the Coalition Against Trafficking in Women summed up the document: “Craigslist continues to cynically profit from the rank exploitation of others by functioning as an online pimp.”
The Polaris Project’s Lagon says a sex-trafficking victim recently brought to the organization was recruited when she was 15 and for three years had her services sold on Craigslist. He says, “This is the new frontier of the sex trade.”
According to the Polaris Project, “In one case, two Chicago women were charged for selling girls as young as 14 years old on Craigslist. The girls were forced to have sex with 10 to 12 men per day, and the traffickers made tens of thousands of dollars.
“A Boston man and his niece were charged with plotting a child-trafficking operation with teenagers as young as 13 by selling them on Craigslist to predators from Massachusetts to New York.”
Activists report that they frequently hear complaints from law enforcement that there has been a spike in online Craigslist ads and that sex trafficking has “moved online.”
Now, one Illinois sheriff is forcing Craigslist to deal with this menace. On July 16, the Illinois court gave Craigslist three weeks to develop its defense and explain what it is doing as a company to keep prostitution ads out of adult services — beyond renaming the section.
Let’s hope Craigslist comes to its senses and shuts down what’s essentially an online-prostitution service. And if it doesn’t, the Illinois court should.
kirstenpowers@aol.com