Across the country, law enforcement is cracking down on sex trafficking of minors by going after online escort ads. Five years ago, Craigslist was pressured to shut down its adult-services forum. The new target is Backpage.
Some in the sex industry are getting around that by using the virtual currency bitcoin. That's the latest adaptation by an industry used to getting creative to avoid detection. After making more than arrests off Backpage since , Cook County Illinois Sheriff Tom Dart called a news conference to announce a victory this summer.
American Express has already done that. They've now been narrowed down to where there's very little options for people who want to work with that website," Dart said. A version of this has played out before. The main site for escort ads used to be Craigslist. But under pressure from activists, Craigslist shut down its adult services forum.
For human rights lawyer Malika Saada Saar, who led the Craigslist action, that nimble pivot was a disappointment. Until we start arresting buyers for statutory rape and putting them on the sex offender registry, Craigslist, Backpage or the next mainstream website will continue to be popular and used in a widespread way," Saada Saar says.
Backpage, owned by a Dutch company, is fighting back. It's suing Sheriff Dart and making its ads free. Backpage's free ads spurred a blizzard of listings, but free isn't always free.
