Craigslist: marketplace for child trafficking

The Internet with all of its conveniences has unfortunately become a major
platform for facilitating human trafficking, prostitution and sexual
exploitation of children. Currently, approximately 400,000 women and
children are being prostituted in the U.S. annually. Surprisingly only
10-20% of prostitution is street-based. Behind closed doors, hidden by the
anonymity of the Internet the exploitation of children is surging.

Craigslist, an Internet company well known for enabling users to
conveniently advertise everything from jobs to housing, has now become a
popular marketplace for the sale of human- beings. With its free postings
and relative anonymity for its users, Craigslist's "Erotic Services" site
has become a vehicle for the trafficking and exploitation of women and
children. There have been numerous reportings of children falling prey to
traffickers advertising on Craigslist and victims as young as four years
old have been sold on the Erotic Services site.

Craigslist in the media

Recent headlines include the January 11, 2007 Cook County, Illinois arrest
of three adults, two of which were posting advertisements on Craigslist for
girls ranging in age from 14 to 16 years old to perform sex acts. ABC 7
Chicago reported that "some of these girls were forced to turn 10, 12
tricks a day resulting in tens of thousands of dollars for the pimps." (See
full article on ABC7Chicago.com: http://abclocal.go.com/wls/story?section=local&id=4928094). In response to the mounting evidence that its site is being used for these insidious purposes, Craigslist often refused to comment or claimed lack of resources to effectively monitor postings.
The Craigslist "Call to Action" campaign, urges Craigslist as a
multi-million dollar company and face of other philanthropic causes to take
responsibility for the role its site is playing in facilitating child
trafficking and exploitation. In light of the New Year, we are asking
Craigslist to make a New Year's resolution to follow in the footsteps of
MySpace and Google and implement better preventative policies and
monitoring efforts to protect its site from being used as a resource for
child traffickers. Through several speaking engagements, a national press
conference to take place in the spring and a petition directed at
Craigslist CEO Jim Buckmaster, Love146 hopes to raise awareness about this
issue and encourage Craigslist to take action.
You will notice that at the bottom of the petition we have given Craigslist
a deadline of January 1st to proclaim there intent to implement the proper
safeguards and monitoring, otherwise we plan to boycott use of their site.
While Craigslist claims to have a philanthropic mindset, it also has a
bottom line and pressure from its users may put pressure on its financial
stability. We have already sent our first mass mailing of the petition
from the Love146 office with a message to Craigslist and CEO Jim Buckmaster
that the time to act is now.
What YOU can do!
Please join us in our efforts by mailing the petition(preferably certified
mail) and e-mailing it to the Craigslist staff: jim@craigslist.org,
craig@craigslist.org, conrad@craigslist.org, abuse@craigslist.org.
Click here to download the petition:
http://www.love146.org/uploads/CL_Petition_11_2007.doc
Click here to download the petition and factsheets:
http://www.love146.org/uploads/Craigslist_campaign_2007.pdf