A girl on an empty street corner. A dirty massage parlor. A backroom in a nightclub.
This is how we imagine the commercial sex industry. But like so many other American industries, technology has transformed this market, moving sex trafficking from the streets to the Internet. Today, the majority of underage victims are advertised or sold online. In recent years, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children has witnessed an 846 percent increase in suspected child sex trafficking reports. Of these reports, 81 percent concern online trafficking, facilitated by websites that help traffickers post advertisements.
This month, we took a major step forward to combat the online sex trafficking industry when H.R. 1865, the Allow States and Victims to Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act, or FOSTA, became law. This legislation will give federal, state, and local prosecutors the tools they need to ensure that online businesses can no longer exploit children, women, and men with impunity. It will also allow survivors to seek justice against the websites that knowingly facilitated their sale and abuse.
FOSTA is the most significant anti-trafficking law Congress has passed in nearly 20 years. But it is just the latest of many steps House Republicans have taken to fight human trafficking. Over the past year, Congress has launched a tremendous effort to aid victims; prevent children, women, and men from being trafficked; and prosecute pimps and buyers.
We have established grant programs through bills, such as the SOAR to Health and Wellness Act, to train and equip healthcare providers to identify trafficking victims. We have authorized service programs through the Trafficking Victims Protection Act and Put Trafficking Victims First Act to help survivors re-establish their lives. And we’ve passed criminal justice reforms, like FOSTA, that will transform the fight against the online marketplaces that profit from this form of modern-day slavery.
Backpage.com was the largest and best known of these websites, but that was just one part of a sophisticated and lucrative industry. Hundreds of advertising sites have jumped into the commercial sex market, many of which are far more explicit than Backpage.com. For example, “Eros” serves the high-end market; “Escorts in College” advertised women close to and under the age of consent; CityXGuide.com is everywhere in California; and “Massage Troll” was popular in the Midwest. Beyond these advertising hubs, there are also hobby boards, websites like “The Erotic Review” where johns posted reviews describing their criminal encounters.
It is critically important that we create significant legal consequences for the online businesses that knowingly exploit the most vulnerable. FOSTA helps prosecutors better target these websites and serves as a wake-up call to businesses that they cannot commit crimes online they could never commit offline.
Following passage of FOSTA, numerous websites shut down pages and message boards that could potentially be used by sex traffickers to facilitate their nefarious activities. Notably, Craigslist shut down its “personals” section, Cityvibe completely suspended operations, and “The Erotic Review” completely closed down accessibility in the United States. Additionally, Reddit implemented new policies banning the sale of sex acts and marked prostitution-related “subreddits” as private; Paypal disabled advertised accounts for commercial sex-related payments; and Google deleted sex-related commercial advertising. While these actions are a positive step, they are only one part of the larger effort to end online sex trafficking.
This new law demonstrates to law enforcement and prosecutors that we believe in and support their missions to protect our communities. It is a message to the victims who have been robbed of their basic dignities that we hear them and are outraged by the injustice they faced. And in many ways, it is a simple statement of the obvious: We do not believe, and have never believed, that sex trafficking is a condition of the free and open Internet.
We introduced FOSTA because it is heartbreaking to watch survivors struggle to piece their lives back together while our justice system shields the websites that knowingly facilitate this heinous crime. Thanks to our committed House Leadership and our colleagues who voted “YES” on H.R. 1865, these survivors will no longer be alone, and justice will no longer be out of reach.
Rep. Ann Wagner, a Republican, represents Missouri’s 2nd Congressional District. Rep. Mimi Walters, a Republican, represents California’s 45th Congressional District.
