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| Senator Portman - Photo from Free Beacon |
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, U.S. Senator Rob Portman (R-OH) highlighted his bipartisan Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act in an op-ed for WIRED. The legislation, which continues to build momentum and is widely supported by dozens of Ohio and national anti-human trafficking advocates and law enforcement and more,
is the result of a two-year Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations
(PSI) inquiry, led by Senators Portman and Claire McCaskill (D-MO),
which culminated in a report entitled “Backpage.com’s Knowing Facilitation of Online Sex Trafficking.”
The report found that Backpage knowingly facilitated criminal sex
trafficking of vulnerable women and children and then covered up
evidence of these crimes in order to increase its own profits.
Despite Backpage’s illicit actions, courts have ruled the company is protected by a 1996 law called the Communications Decency Act, and have said it is up to Congress to fix the law so they can hold traffickers accountable. Said Portman in his op-ed, “Courts
have consistently ruled that a federal law called the Communications
Decency Act protects Backpage from liability for its role in sex
trafficking. This 21-year-old law was designed to ensure websites aren’t
held liable for crimes others commit using their website. The
legislation has an important purpose, but now, because of broad legal
interpretations, it is used as a shield by websites that facilitate the
sale of women and children for sex.” SESTA will help bring the “21-year-old Communications Decency Act into the 21st century” and end online human trafficking.
Excerpts of the op-ed can be found below and the full op-ed can be found at this link.
How Federal Law Protects Online Sex Traffickers
By Rob Portman
WIRED
October 24, 2017
It is a stain on our national character that sex
trafficking is increasing in this country, in this century, and experts
say it is happening because of the internet and the ruthless efficiency
of online sex trafficking.
Sex trafficking has moved from the street corner
to the smartphone, and online sex trafficking has predominately
occurred through one website: Backpage.com.
Headlines tell the tragic stories: In March
2013, police reported that a Miami pimp forced a teen to tattoo his name
on her eyelids. In June 2017 in Chicago, feds charged a man for
prostituting a 16-year-old girl before her murder. That same month,
three people were accused of pimping a pregnant teen for sex.
These heinous crimes, and countless others,
involve Backpage, and yet the website has repeatedly evaded justice for
its role in child sex trafficking…
Despite these facts, courts have consistently
ruled that a federal law called the Communications Decency Act protects
Backpage from liability for its role in sex trafficking. This
21-year-old law was designed to ensure websites aren’t held liable for
crimes others commit using their website. The legislation has an
important purpose, but now, because of broad legal interpretations, it
is used as a shield by websites that facilitate the sale of women and
children for sex.
The Communications Decency Act should not
protect sex traffickers who prey on the most innocent and vulnerable
among us. I do not believe those in Congress who supported this bill in
1996 ever thought that 21 years later, their vote would allow websites
to knowingly traffic women and children over the internet with immunity…
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