By Kevin McCauley
FitzGibbon Media is promoting the effort by a coalition of clergy members that calls for the Village Voice to shut down its backpage.com site that the group believes is used as a platform for the sex trafficking of boys and girls.
Organized by Groundswell, the social action arm of Auburn Theological Seminary, the group ran a full-page ad in today’s New York Times that features its open letter (PDF) to Village Voice Media CEO Jim Larkin. It notes that media in 14 states reported the arrests of adults who sold minors for sex via Backpage.com.
The ad says the nation’s 51 attorney generals believe the “best way to eradicate your company’s connection with sex trafficking of minors is to shut down the adult section of your website, as Craigslist did.”
Backpage believes it has put effective measures in place to prevent childhood prostitution, but Rev. Katharine Henderson of the ATS dismisses those moves as “half measures.” She believes shutting down the adult section is the only way to end the sale of minors for good.
In conjunction with Change.org, which has one million members, Groundswell has launched a petition drive to increase the heat on Village Voice Media.
The petition says VVM has a “moral responsibility to ensure that young girls aren't being abused in the commercial sex industry with help from their website, and that they aren't facilitating human trafficking.”
D.C.-based FitzGibbon Media is led by former Fenton VP Trevor FitzGibbon.
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