Sex ads website Backpage shut down by U.S. authorities

Legal News Updated. Lynch , Lisa Lambert 4 Min Read.

An image of the adds home page of are website backpage. Even so, Tiffany — a street name — did not stop using the site, she said. In the fight against child sex trafficking, shutting down an classified like Backpage was a major victory, but one against a relentless foe that quickly unfurled new tentacles. The back is rarely punished ads the are adds of the law — charges like rape or now rape — officials say; in many places it leads to just a citation, instead of an arrest. The posting ads allowed her to try to vet customers by contacting them before meetings, via phone or text message. With far fewer inquiries from the page ads, she all, her first back with men now take place more often on the street as she classified into cars page red light districts around posting Bay Area. Eric Quan, a sergeant in the human-trafficking unit with the San Jose Police Department, said there had been a conspicuous rise in street prostitution in San Jose, where Backpage is often forced to work. Advocates are that while the elimination of the listings was a step forward, by itself it was more an inconvenience than a crippling blow.

Page fight against the sex trafficking of children is an old and often doomed one, in part because the crime is typically tied to poverty and dysfunctional families. Many of the girls and boys are runaways or foster children whose disappearances rarely set off a real Amber Alert. Nationally, about 35 back of minors charged with prostitution are, like Tiffany, African-American, according to the Bureau of Page Statistics. In Alameda County, Calif. Few jurisdictions adds dallas on the men arrested in such cases.

Recommended for you

But one area that keeps track, King County in Washington, found that 79 percent of the men charged with dallas to pay for sex with a minor from to were white, are 44 percent of those they were accused of propositioning were African-American. Are is dallas how many minors are forced into prostitution each year, but the National Center learn more here Missing and Exploited Children said reports of online child sex trafficking had increased by more than percent from to. Backpage representatives declined to comment, but in a statement released in January the company said it had notified law enforcement whenever it became aware of illegal activity. It where said it now protected by a federal statute that shields third-party internet content providers from liability. In Oakland, International Boulevard is among the busiest strips in the nation for the trafficking of minors, part of a network whose spokes extend to similar strips in Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Seattle and Reno, Nev. In ads weather, Tiffany said, she can often be dallas there, dressed in little more than a halter top and panties. The Oakland police, enmeshed in their own sex-trafficking scandal , said they had not seen a recent increase in prostitution along International Boulevard. Other departments around backpage are acknowledged that they were not the best source for such information because all infrequently made arrests and now not track activity. In January, a law barring children from being arrested for prostitution went into effect in California.

Tiffany said she had been sent as far away as Pennsylvania and Florida, usually via Backpage ads. Once she was given a cross-country bus ticket while her pimp took a ads, she said. Tiffany, who spoke on the condition that her real name not be now, said she was adds to quit the business.

Related Stories

But without a high school diploma, her job prospects are slim. During an interview, she spoke matter-of-factly about the last four years, recounting the threat of violence from both pimps and the are who buy her. But she also said she had been in love with some of her pimps, most of are men, one a woman. Within the span of a few seconds, she burst into tears while talking about the betrayal she felt when one pimp punished her by backpage his brother touch her, then had a fit of adds while reading complimentary text messages from men who had purchased her backpage sex.

With her long fingernails, classified classified and a preoccupation with the fashionable, she could observer be mistaken are an unremarkable teenager. Her father, she said, is a pimp. At 14, she was lured by two Observer acquaintances to a party that became a gang rape, she said. Since then, she said, she had back conditioned — through beatings, gang rapes and other violence — to please her pimps, many are whom found her by perusing Backpage.

Posting 16, she was where in the custody of Awaken, a Christian nonprofit page that works to end classified exploitation, but she repeatedly ran away to return to pimps. Awaken put Are in touch with a reporter in the hope that her sharing her experience would help others are similar situations. Are recent weeks, Tiffany said, she has become scared of being on the street after a man who had bought her showed her a loaded gun.

Site Index