Backpage.com, the online classifieds site best known as the place to find sex for sale, went dark last July. Experts believe child sex-trafficking cases declined about 84 percent after the site died.
Advocates who waged the long legal and legislative fight to hold Backpage.com accountable for its part in exploiting young and vulnerable victims can feel triumphant knowing their efforts had an immediate effect. But the problem now is that, as some predicted, traffickers simply have moved to other sites, many of them harder to find, to advertise the services of their victims.
Ending human trafficking was never going to be as simple as shutting down a shady classified advertising site. But the case shows that the effort to crack down on sites that facilitate the trafficking of human beings is worthwhile but much tougher than many would like to have believed.
It took years to shut down Backpage.com. In 2017, after an 18-month investigation by a senate subcommittee chaired by Ohio Sen. Rob Portman, a damning report proved Backpage.com had knowingly taken traffickers’ ad dollars and turned a blind eye to their crimes.
When lawsuits from trafficking victims and their families failed, Mr. Portman sponsored a bill to amend the Communications Decency Act to hold publishers like Backpage.com accountable. It finally passed last spring. Also last spring, the CEO of Backpage.com pleaded guilty to conspiracy, money laundering, and facilitating prostitution and agreed to shut the site.
That other websites filled the void left by Backpage.com is disheartening, but it was predictable. Getting a grip on the marketplace is going to require a sustained commitment to the fight.
It is going to take more awareness campaigns to enlighten the public so people can spot signs of trafficking and do more to protect the vulnerable young people who too often fall into the clutches of traffickers.
It will take more training for law enforcement, prosecutors, and judges to better understand trafficking. And it will take more resources so these police and court officials can effectively tackle the insidious problem that is human trafficking.
Trafficking has long been the crime cruelly perpetrated in plain sight. Backpage.com was evidence of this. The criminals have slipped deeper underground, but the fight to stop them must go on.
First Published April 27, 2019, 4:00 a.m.
