Three young girls who were allegedly sold as prostitutes have filed a lawsuit against online advertising website Backpage.com.
A lawyer representing Backpage told the Washington Supreme Court that the lawsuit should be junked because the company is not liable for the ads as it did not write them.
However, the lawyer for the three girls said that the company is not granted immunity by the Communications Decency Act as Backpage sells itself as an online forum for the sale of "escort services." Backpage even assists pimps in posting effective ads by providing them with instructions, further adding content to the biggest human-trafficking online forum in the United States.
Before the scheduled hearing, a crowd of people stood on the courthouse steps, even while the rain was pouring, holding up signs that said "Stop Buying Our Girls," "End Child Slavery," and "People's bodies are not commodities."
"No one has the right to sell a kid for sex," said Jo Lembo of Shared Hope International. "That's why we're here. Someone has to speak up for them. They're kids."
Last week, a similar case against Backpage was filed in Boston. However, another case that was filed in Missouri was dismissed, according to Yiota Souras, lawyer for the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children.
Souras says the case in Washington is the one that has gone the farthest among all the cases filed against Backpage.
Jim Grant, lawyer for Backpage, said that the communications act preserves free speech over the Internet, and makes websites such as Backpage immune to the posts made by its members.
Grant added that if Backpage would be held liable for the posts of its users, then the free speech that the act looks to preserve will be compromised.
However, Erik Bauer, representing the victims, said that the girls were studying in 7th grade and 9th grade when they were sold by pimps on Backpage, with the sex traffickers knowing that they could remain anonymous when posting the ads.
"They claim they have immunity from having pimps sell children on their website," said Bauer. "There's a massive amount of human sex trafficking on their website."
Bauer added the while Backpage did not create the ads, the website helped the pimps develop and post the ads.
The case is made more appalling due to the fact that children have been involved. Child trafficking is a very sensitive issue and a priority among federal investigators, who have even expanded access to an app that looks to track down and capture child predators.
The app is called Operation Predator and was first released for the iOS in September 2013.
