Thursday, May 6, 2010

Tell Craigslist to Make Real Change in the Adult Services Section of Craigslist

by Amanda Kloer from change.org

Last year, Craigslist.org announced they would remove their erotic services section. The announcement came after pressure from the anti-trafficking community and complaints that Craigslist was being used widely to promote prostitution, sometimes involving children and human trafficking victims.

However, that section has been replaced with an adult services section which contains many of the same ads, though now thinly disguised as legal erotic services. The change has been in the title alone, not in the content.

Sign up today and tell Craigslist to make a real change in the adult services section and refuse to promote the exploitation of women and children.


The petition reads:

Last year, you made a very important and commendable choice to remove the "erotic services" section of Craigslist.org. As someone who cares deeply about the issue of human trafficking and sexual exploitation of children through prostitution, I commend that decision and thank you for it.

However, the new "adult services" section which has replaced it still contains ads for illegal prostitution, many of which are thinly veiled as legal erotic services. These ads are similar in tone and content to those which were previously used to advertise the sexual services of trafficked women and girls in the Craigslist erotic services section. I hope Craigslist will renew its commitment to reducing human trafficking and sexual exploitation of children by taking the following important steps:

1. Publically release the new standards which are being used to review the ads in the new adult services section, including the standards for staff training and supervision.

2. Take further steps to cooperate with law enforcement in the identification of illegal activities taking place on Craigslist.org.

3. Take further steps to identify the euphemisms and codes which are being used to conceal illegal activities and use that knowledge to prevent ads for such activities from being posted.

Craigslist provides many valuable community services and should not be tainted with advertisements for illegal activities, especially the exploitation and trafficking of women and children in commercial sex. Please renew your commitment to this important issue by making real and lasting changes by creating barriers to prevent the exploitation of women and children and the conducting of illegal activity on Craigslist.org.


Click here to sign the petition.

No comments:

Post a Comment