Renewed Vigor

Welp.

It's about time for a new post. There is no excuse for not posting. I just need to do it.
People need to know about injustice. People need to know what they can do.
You need to know. I need to know.

This article on CNN stirred some age old feelings in my bones about what can and should be done about prostitution in light of modern-day slavery.

To be clear: I do not believe that all prostitution is slavery. That said, I believe it is more often than we realize.

It may not be direct force holding someone in bondage. It may be socio-economic, it may be purely economic, it may be addiction, fear, and/or half a dozen other issues. The reason is as unique and different as each person in that situation who deserves better.

So, even though all prostitution is not slavery, I believe we should fight against prostitution as if it were.

News roundup Sept 8th

While the last couple of blog posts have been about Craigslist, I want to be clear that I am not trying to pick on them or stigmatize them in any way. I love Craigslist, I just want to see them keep exploitation off their sites.

Trafficking is a hot topic lately.

Harvard Fellow and expert in the field of human trafficking, Siddarth Kara is on a ten week tour of South Asia investigating instances of human trafficking. He is in Nepal this week, his updates are appearing on CNN. http://ow.ly/2BtRO

New York Times editorial reporting on the largest Human Trafficking case ever brought by the U.S. federal government filed in Honolulu last week, allegedly over 400 exploited by Global Horizons Manpower in 2004 and 2005. http://ow.ly/2Bu23

A little over a week ago Spain arrested 14 people in connection with a Brazilian run prostitution ring. The exploited were mostly young Brazilian men in their 20s. Five more people were arrested yesterday in connection with this ring as well. Via Telegraph http://ow.ly/2Budl and CNN http://ow.ly/2Buh6. Interesting note here, according to the English daily, The Telegraph,

Sex is a multibillion-pound industry in Spain, with brothels staffed mainly by poor immigrant women from Latin America, Africa and eastern Europe lining motorways around the country. Respectable daily newspapers feature adverts from people selling their bodies. Prostitution falls in legal limbo: it is not regulated, although pimping is a crime.

Got a story that I missed? Leave a comment or email me: chris@anothersoul.com

Update on CL's "censored" bar.

Still no word yet from Craigslist.com if the move to put the "censored" bar in place of the "adult services" section on U.S. Craigslist sites is permanent or not.

Check this video out for an explaination of exactly what CL has done and some of the reaction to it so far. (Thanks Kyle from newsy.com).



Yahoo News/AP reporting that "1 'censored' bar won't stop online prostitution" but acknowleding that it is a step in the right direction "because it moved the ads off a highly visible location."

Craigslist disables "adult services," unclear if temporary measure.

The New York Times is reporting that Craig Newmark and Craigslist.com have disabled the Adult Services section of the website.

This section of the website was rife with personal advertisements for prostitution and according to law enforcement was a exploitative portal for child prostitution and human trafficking. Due to the nature of these ads, last month attorneys general from 17 states took action and sent a letter to Craigslist asking them to take down the section. They have replaced the former link with a giant black "censored" label.

Time Magazine notes that it is unclear at this time whether this is a permanent change or just a temporary disabling. This is what you see if you visit the website today (This was viewed from my iPhone and zoomed in on the "services" section), previously, there was a link there that said "adult services."

Personally, I think this is a media savvy play from Craigslist that will let it gauge the public's reaction to this. Will people cry foul for censorship? Or will people applaud the company for taking action at it's own expense to combat human trafficking and exploitation of minors?

Craigslist has been under fire from politicians, the media, and bloggers who have been leveraging social networking to spread the word about the problem.

This will cost Craig lost revenue. I mentioned in a previous post that Craiglist generated as much as 1/3 of their annual revenue from the adult services postings, which had cost $10 for a new post and $5 to re-list an existing post.

Read more about this from today's New York Times article, CNN's reaction to it, or Time Magazine's take.

Craigslist and pornography fuel sex trafficking

Update Sept 5th 2010: Craigslist has disabled the adult services section, at least temporarily. See my new post http://ow.ly/2zPgQ.
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Should we boycott Craigslist.com? It's a good question. A better question is: How did the American society get to a place in which sex is a simple click away?

I love Craigslist... I bought my Mac off of a Craigslist posting, I have an interview tomorrow for a job that I found listed on Craigslist, my girlfriend found her job on Craigslist, and I've helped a few people pick up items from sellers. Once I helped move a piano that a family was giving away for free! Great, right!?

But there is a dark side to Craiglist. The adult services section, which replaced the erotic services section two years ago, has been reported to be rife with advertised prostitution and sex ads. According to The Rebecca Project's Malika Saada Saar "[Craigslist] just made an estimated $36 million in profits from these sex ads in the last year alone," and represents 1/3 of Craiglist's annual income.[1][2] The problem with these ads is that soliciting sex in the U.S., even on the internet, is illegal. Craigslist has become a virtual brothel where many of the advertised individuals are young girls who are being exploited.