Human Trafficking on CRAIGSLIST

For the past decade, the ever-increasing popularity of online classified sites has been pulling the carpet out from underneath its’ elderly predecessor, the daily newspaper. Now, buyers can enter a simple keyword into an online search database and discover thousands of items instantly.

As a result of few limitations, online classified sites have become a plethora of ‘for sale’ goodies ranging from children’s toys, cameras, computers, apartments, animals, jobs, and businesses.

For the ease and convenience of the friendly online buyer, nearly everything imaginable can be purchased with little or no effort.

Including flesh and blood.

According to an article recently published on Not For Sale.com, an online campaign fighting to abolish human trafficking, the internet is further enabling the shadowy world that is the sex trade industry.

Such activity takes place every day on Craigslist, a popular online web community which serves over 450 cities worldwide.

The Craigslist question and answer ‘fact sheet’ boasts that “just about anything” can be found on the site, providing an inadvertently direct and hauntingly true statement by the site administrators.

“There’s a dark side of Craigslist that most users don’t see,” wrote Katherine Chon, the Executive Director of the Polaris Project, one of the largest anti-human trafficking organizations in the U.S.

“In the ‘Erotic’ section, human traffickers have found Craigslist to be one of the most efficient, effective (and free) ways to post children and women for sale.”

For example, a young woman in the United States was convicted with involving minors in a prostitution ring that relied heavily on the site for advertising. Before she was old enough to vote, 19 year old Justine Alex Reisdorf began recruiting female students in the Eagan school district near her home city of Burnsville, Minn.

She advertised the services of minors nearly exclusively on Craigslist for seven months without any intervention from site moderators. Authorities only discovered the operation when a young girl, who had at one time worked for Reisdorf, tipped off a police officer who worked at her High School in June of 2007.

This case is not isolated. There have been numerous similar convicted cases in the United States to date and likely hundreds of others that have not yet been discovered. In Canada, there have been no convicted instances of this, but with more than 30 million new classified ads being self-published by Craigslist users worldwide each month, there is no doubt that it is happening.

Many may argue that the lack of moderation is what is responsible for such cases, but in truth, it appears unclear whether or not Craigslist staff moderate the site at all. The for-profit company currently has only 25 hired employees and relies heavily on the public for “community moderation,” using a flagging system to ensure that no free postings violate the terms of use.

When contacted to provide a statement about the safety and monitoring of the site, Craigslist representatives at the customer service office in San Francisco, California., were rude and hurried. All questions were referred back to either the online information page or an e-mail address that even they were not sure of.

When e-mailed as suggested, a response of one sentence was given, including the link to the Craigslist online privacy policy- right back to where the research began.

“It’s completely unbelievable. You sell cars, and you sell children…all in the same place,” said Shandelle Skaley, an administrator and director at the Word of Life church in Calgary, Alta.

Skaley runs the ‘Compassionate’ service, put on by the church for youth and young adults at the University of Calgary every week. She also assists a group of young people from her church in raising awareness and money to fight social injustices both locally and worldwide.

“We basically just started teaching about AIDS, poverty, the sex trade and slavery, and we try to mobilize these young people and get them thinking creatively about how to make a difference in the world,” she said.

“It’s not only education, but it’s also figuring out actually what can be done to change this.”

Skaley was the forerunner in organizing the ‘Compassionate Benefit Concert,’ a live concert and fundraiser that took place at The House coffee sanctuary in Kensington on July 25, 2008. The event raised $1,000 in support of ‘Children of the Bridge,’ an organization in Thailand that rescues children from the sex trade industry.

Oftentimes, when one thinks of modern-day slavery, images of children living in far-off, impoverished countries come to mind. Most either fail to, or choose not to think of the young women and children being forced to have sex with random strangers in their own country, city, or worse yet, community.

Earlier this year, in the Canadian city of Niagra Falls, Ontario, a 25 year old Toronto man named Imani Nakpamgi was charged with the trafficking of two underage girls for personal profit. According to an article published in the Toronto Star in May, Nakpamgi was fully aware that both girls were underage, being 14 and 15 when he first started acting as their pimp.

The Star reported that the younger girl worked for Nakpamgi for two months and was carrying his child at the time of the court hearing. Crown prosecutor John Raftery told the court that the older girl, who is now 18, began working for him in September 2005.

"He used intimidation and threats" to control her, Raftery told the Star, saying that he would kidnap her younger brother if she “ever got out of line.” She finally went to the police when a client robbed her at gunpoint.

Both girls had been advertised on the internet.

Skaley believes that some of the only ways to combat the internet sex slave phenomenon are education, awareness and inspiration.

While Craigslist has recently made efforts to reduce this type of crime from taking place on their websites, more needs to be done.

People need to know that this is happening, and a site that attracts over 12 billion views worldwide per month could be the perfect place to start. Through disclaimers, enhanced information pages and a more attentive staff, Craigslist could indeed become part of the solution instead of a big part of the problem.

“It does happen here…to look away and say that it doesn’t is inhumane,” said Skaley.

“Even if you’re not causing the problem, allowing it to happen is just as bad. That is why I think it’s so important to educate and inspire people. If we can get them thinking, maybe we can make a difference."

Photo illustration by Andy Nichols, www.andynichols.com.