CBA Record

YLS Special Issue l PROTECTING OUR CHILDREN

ILLINOIS TRAFFICKING FOR SEXUAL EXPLOITATION STATISTICS 126 Sex trafficking cases charged in Cook County since 2010. 32% of victims in cases charged were minors. 198 Reports of human trafficking cases from Illinois in 2016 to the National Human Trafficking Resource Center hotline. 30%were minors, 79%U.S. citizens. 1,004 Human trafficking cases in Illinois have been identified by the Hotline since 2007. National Statistics 7,572 Human trafficking cases reported to the Hotline in 2016. The vast majority involved sexual exploitation. 31, 659 Cases identified by the Hotline since 2007. 2,310 Cases of human trafficking between 2009-2014 confirmed by federally-funded local task forces (covering only a fifth of the country).

The current market leader in com- mercial sex advertising is Backpage.com, (hereinafter Backpage), netting more than 80% of such advertising revenue in the United States Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, United States Senate, Backpage.com’s Knowing Facilitation of Online Sex Trafficking: Staff Report (2017), available at http://bit.ly/2iP6cZP; reportedly internal revenue reports demon- strate that from 2013 to early 2015 99% of Backpage’s worldwide income was directly attributable to the “adult section.” K.D. Harris, Attorney General Kamala D. Harris Announces Criminal Charges against Senior Corporate Officers of Backpage. com for Profiting from Prostitution and Arrest of Carl Ferrer, CEO (2016), available at http://bit.ly/2m2AZ7i. For years now, law enforcement officials, including our own Cook County SheriffTomDart, have lobbied Backpage to do more to remove ads of minors from its site. When Backpage remained adamant, they brought lawsuits. Due to federal law (Telecommunications Act of 1996, Pub. L. No. 104-104, (110 Stat.) 56 (1996).) that the courts have said provides near complete criminal and civil immunity to Internet providers for the content others have created (Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, 2017), all plaintiffs have failed. Sheriff Dart then successfully lobbied

major credit card companies to prohibit use of their cards on Backpage. Subsequently Backpage sued Dart in federal court and, because of a finding that the sheriff had vio- lated its First Amendment rights, obtained an injunction against Dart’s contacting credit card companies or financial institu- tions in the future. Following a multi-year subpoena enforcement effort, early in 2017 a Senate subcommittee (cited earlier) issued an analysis of the long sought after docu- ments. The subcommittee found that Backpage was editing the ads in the adult section manually, looking for the use of forbidden words and easing them, elimi- nating the necessity of rejecting entire ads (and thus losing money). Such words included “little girl,” “teen,” innocent, “Lolita,” and “school girls.” This practice, which changed nothing about the real age of the person being sold on the site, implicates Backpage in creating the content of the ads. Early in 2017, the California Attorney General filed criminal charges against Backpage owners and operators (Backpage.com hit with new pimping, money-laundering charges in California (Dec. 27, 2016), available at http://reut. rs/2lE7bS9.) based on the findings of money laundering in the report (earlier charges had been dismissed due to federal Internet immunity). In January 2017.

by the CBA Young Lawyers Section during the 2017 Human Trafficking Awareness Week was subtitled, “Learn how you can take meaningful action to help protect children and make a difference.”The prob- lem has been that up until now it has been difficult for those concerned about human trafficking to take action other than calling law enforcement or the hotline when they see something suspicious. Once, however, the spotlight is put on the infrastructure of trafficking, there is plenty of room for action, and audience members at the seminar had many important suggestions. This article summarizes some of the legal and extra-legal efforts now underway to dismantle the infrastructure that supports trafficking for sexual exploitation. Lawyers have been front and center in the recent efforts and have a large part to play. The Internet An undercover officer responded to an advertisement in the Casual Encounters section of Craigslist in 2015 which read “Come Sleep with Daddy’s Little Girl.” He was offered two hours with the four-year- old daughter of the advertiser in exchange for $1,000. When the officer arrived at the assignation, he was shown the young girl lying naked under a blanket in a groggy state, perhaps drugged with sleeping pills (Salinger, 2015).

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