Every day I am finding–or someone is sending me–another horrific story about sex trafficking here in the U.S. and around the world. Here’s a snippet from a recent article:

“In late April, a prostitution sting in South Austin found an undocumented 16-year-old girl was being advertised and sold for sex online.” [Full Story]

What can be done?

According to several recent studies, there is growing evidence that the demand for sex with children is driven in part by Internet pornography. How so?

Mary Eberstadt, a research fellow at the Hoover Institution, says that “trafficking, as the Department of Justice and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children have both noted, is often associated with pornography–for example, via cameras and film equipment found when trafficking circles are broken up.”

Demand for Internet pornography is one of the drivers of trafficked children–it’s not the only one, but it is one that we can influence and control.

What we can do is stop watching online porn. Easier said than done. In a follow-up post, I am going to discuss organizations, people, and ideas for battling online pornography. I want to hear from you. What organizations do you know that are leading the way in rolling back the tidal wave of porn on the Internet? Who is doing the best work? 

 

 

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