A new ad is launching Monday that portrays a 13-year old survivor of child sex trafficking who was advertised by her pimp on Backpage.com. The ad is the latest step in a string of efforts aimed at convincing Village Voice Media to shut down the adult section of its website, Backpage.com, where children and teens have been advertised by others for sex.
Sponsored by FAIR Girls — a social service organization dedicated to preventing the exploitation of girls worldwide with empowerment and education — the 30-second ad will debut online and air on television in the Washington, D.C. market on Sunday on ABC’s This Week with George Stephanopoulos. It also will air several times next week on cable.
The ad can be viewed here: http://www.fairgirls.org/page/sign-petition
The true story of a 13-year old girl who was repeatedly advertised for sex by her pimp on Backpage.com was the inspiration for the ad. The girl’s experience of exploitation began when she was only 9 years old. At 12, her trafficker started marketing her on Backpage.com. To protect her identity, a young actress and activist, Victoria Pannell, plays the part of the survivor.
The ad calls on the public to sign a petition on SignOn.org, which demands Village Voice Media close the adult section of its website. Pannell is the sponsor of the petition.
View the petition here: http://www.signon.org/sign/village-voice-media-please/
The ad also calls on the public to contact 26 major advertisers in Village Voice Media’s 13 flagship publications, including the Dallas Observer, and ask them to join the human rights movement by immediately discontinuing their advertisements in Village Voice Media newspapers until the company closes the adult section of Backpage.com. The two major advertisers identified in the Dallas Observer are Bud Light and The Dallas Symphony Orchestra.
FAIR Girls’ appeal to advertisers follows similar requests by Groundswell, the social action initiative of Auburn Seminary and convener of a coalition of 700 clergy speaking out about Backpage.com, four U.S. Senators, Change.org, and other activists. Their collective efforts have resulted in several national brands, including AT&T, Barnes & Noble, Best Buy, and IHOP, ceasing their advertisements with Village Voice Media.
Learn more about the advertiser effort here: http://www.signon.org/sign/village-voice-media-please/
“Almost every single sex trafficked girl we have assisted in the U.S. this year was sold by her pimp using the adult section of Backpage.com. In the past year, the number of girls we have assisted has more than doubled. For us, this is not just a campaign. This is about protecting real girls from being victimized,” said Andrea Powell, Co-founder and Executive Director of FAIR Girls.
“Backpage.com is the common denominator in the overwhelming number of our sex trafficking cases. It enables pimps to advertise children for sex. Shutting it down will go a long way towards protecting these girls and supporting our law enforcement efforts,” said Laura Neubauer, Chief of the Brooklyn District Attorney’s Sex Trafficking Unit.
According to an analysis by the trade organization AIM Group, Backpage.com is the leading U.S. website for prostitution advertising, generating an estimated $2.6 million monthly, or $27.4 million annually, from the sale of online escort ads.
“Backpage has made the trafficking of girls its business model. We must call for the end of any business venture that profits from the exploitation of vulnerable children,” said Malika Saada Saar, Executive Director of the Human Rights Project for Girls, a human rights organization dedicated to protecting the rights of vulnerable young women and girls in the U.S.
Since August 2011, 51 of the nation’s attorneys general, 700 multi-faith religious leaders, 53 leading anti-trafficking experts and organizations, 19 U.S. Senators, state and city lawmakers around the country, over a dozen prominent musicians, nearly a quarter of a million citizens, and others have called on Village Voice Media to exit the adult ad business.
“As a teenager, I was advertised by my pimp on Backpage.com. This year, one of the men who bought me put a knife to my throat and almost killed me. The police rescued me, and with the help of FAIR Girls, I’m rebuilding my life. I am 20 years old now, but I continue to see girls, often much younger than me, who are sold by pimps using Backpage.com. This has to stop,” said a sex trafficking survivor who wished to be identified as Nina.
- AD TRANSCRIPT:
“I thought he was my boyfriend,
I thought he loved me for real.
But he made me work everyday.
He threatened me, he made me take drugs,
he raped me a bunch of times,
and then he sold me to four, sometimes five, men a day for $100 an hour.
One time there was ten men in one day.
I thought they would kill me, I thought I would never get away.
My pimp advertised me online at Backpage.com.
That’s how these guys buy me.
I’m 13.”
