Strong male hands cover little girl face with emotional stress, pain, afraid, call for help, struggle, terrified expression.Concept Photo of abduction, missing, kidnapped,victim, hostage, abused child
Underneath the news of COVID-19 and the many other human rights crises going on in the world, human traffickers have been able to stay mostly under the radar. Pictured above is a map of the United States, color-coded according to how frequently trafficking has been reported.
The Trafficking in Person’s report, held by our Department of State this year, defines human trafficking as the following:
The United States considers “trafficking in persons,” “human trafficking,” and “modern slavery” to be interchangeable umbrella terms that refer to both sex and labor trafficking.The TVPA and the Palermo Protocol describe this as compelled service using a number of different terms, including involuntary servitude, slavery or practices similar to slavery, debt bondage, and forced labor.
In the wake of COVID-19, human trafficking has only gotten worst. According to a study done by Polaris, the amount of trafficking cases has increased by 40% since the beginning of lockdown. You can access their full report here.
Activists have struggled to find answers as to why human trafficking has become more potent over quarantine. Many have blamed the media for focusing only on COVID-19, while others have looked to online sources. Pornhub in particular is being pinpointed as a major trafficking spot, being a central trade area for child pornography links (cp), and allowing for revenge porn, rape recordings, and many more.
EVIDENCE Pornhub is facilitating the distribution of “child pornography”/CSAM/trafficking & enabling users to trade child rape videos for months & years with NO action. Even using the video title to advertise child rape links.
— Laila Mickelwait (@LailaMickelwait) July 8, 2020
CP stand for “child pornography”. #Traffickinghub pic.twitter.com/cHEHJBLHS5
Among these recent accusations towards Pornhub regards the “Czech Casting” channel owned by NETLOOK, which was charged last Friday from Human Trafficking, sexual coercion, and rape. Like many other traffickers, NETLOOK used fake modeling advertisements to lure in young, mostly college-aged women who wanted to make some cash on the side and didn’t know that the modeling gig they signed up for was actually a pornography recording session. Czech police are still investigating in order to determine how many women were affected by this trafficking effort.
So, what can be done?
Sign the petition or donate to TraffickingHub, the current effort to hold PornHub executives responsible.
Call the following numbers if you suspect trafficking or are a victim:
