50,000 Join Clergy Coalition in Asking Village Voice to Stop Kids From Being Sold for Sex
Tens of thousands support interfaith clergy coalition's explosive campaign on Change.org calling on Village Voice Media to immediately block all child sex trafficking ads from online classified site Backpage.com; clergy claim ads violate "common morality" of people of faith.
NEW YORK, Oct. 27, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- More than 50,000 people from across the U.S. and around the world have joined a popular campaign on Change.org calling on Village Voice Media to shut down its "adult" section so that no minors are sold for sex on the site.
Groundswell, the social action initiative of Auburn Theological Seminary, convened a coalition of leading clergy and religious leaders from diverse faith traditions including Christianity, Judaism and Islam and launched a campaign on Change.org after multiple ads for sex trafficking victims were identified on Backpage.com, an online classified website owned by Village Voice Media. Groundswell's coalition members say sex trafficking of minors violates a common morality held by members of all faiths.
"As people of faith and moral calling of many creeds and backgrounds, we stand together to call on Village Voice Media to shut down the adult services section of Backpage.com," said the Reverend Dr. Katharine Henderson, president of Auburn Seminary. "We agree with the 51 Attorneys General who say that additional safeguards alone won't prevent Backpage.com from being used as a platform to sell girls and boys for sex."
"Asking Village Voice Media to shut down the adult section of Backpage.com is just the first step in solving the problem of the domestic sex trafficking of girls and boys," said Rabbi Sharon Brous, founding rabbi of IKAR, a Jewish spiritual community that advocates for social justice. "We know that we also need to enforce laws that protect girls and boys from sex trafficking, educate people about the extent of this problem, and address the poverty and child abuse that are at the root of domestic child sex trafficking. Village Voice Media can help these girls and boys today by shutting down the adult section of Backpage.com."
News of the campaign's success is likely to increase pressure on Village Voice Media, whose main competitor, Craigslist, shut down its adult services section last year after a similar public campaign. In addition to the online petition campaign, Groundswell took out a full-page ad in the New York Times detailing its demands.
"Groundswell's ability to unite religious leaders from multiple faith traditions around a single moral issue has been remarkable," said Change.org Director of Organizing Amanda Kloer. "Priests, rabbis, ministers and Imams from New York to Georgia are petitioning Village Voice Media with a unified voice. Change.org is about empowering people to take action on the issues that matter to them, and it has been incredible to watch Groundswell's campaign take off."
Over fifty Attorneys General have asked Village Voice Media for more information about how it is fighting human trafficking on Backpage.com, citing 50 trafficking cases in 22 states that have been identified on the site.
Live signature totals from the Groundswell's campaign:
Contact information for petition signers in your area can be arranged upon request:
Amanda Kloer
Director of Organizing, Change.org
(404) 451-6580, [email protected]
For more information on Change.org, please visit:
http://www.change.org/about
Change.org is the world's fastest-growing platform for social change — growing by more than 400,000 new members a month, and empowering millions of people to start, join, and win campaigns for social change in their community, city and country.
SOURCE Change.org
Share this article