Human rights groupFAIRasked Craigslist to shut down its adult services section after two women have said that they were victimized into forced prostitution and trafficked for sex by their captors (letter to Craig, in PDF atrebbecaproject.org).Craigslist, an Internet online classifieds ad site, responded by saying that “criminal misuse of the site is quite rare.”
The victims, identified as AK and MC, said that they were forced into the sex industry by their male captors after having met with the men through the site. According to AK, who met a man in 2009 via a Craigslist classified, says that her captor pretended to be her boyfriend and later revealed himself to be a pimp. “He put my picture on Craigslist, and I was sold for sex by the hour at truck stops and cheap motels, 10 hours with 10 different men every night,” AK wrote.
MC, a victim in 2004, says that her pimp made her answer other classified listings and made $1500 per night selling her body: “All day, me and other girls sat with our laptops, posting pictures and answering ads on Craigslist. He made $1,500 a night selling my body, dragging me to Los Angeles, Houston, Little Rock – and one trip to Las Vegas in the trunk of a car.”
However, such instances on Craigslist are rare. Craigslist is working with authorities and want to learn more information about the cases so they can alter their policies and make changes to the site to protect users. According to a blog-post by the site’s co-founder, “If Craigslist was misused, we want to learn more so we can improve our preventative measures,” he wrote. “If anyone committing such crimes has not yet been apprehended and prosecuted, we want to do everything in our power to assist the police in making that happen.”
The site has been making changes to a stricter “Adult Services” model for listings recently. Craigslist says that MK and AC may have been victimized before the changes were made, though the women are still asking Craigslist to shut down the adult section of the online classifieds services.
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