SEATTLE, WA – On March 29, Washington State Gov. Christine Gregoire signed into law a measure that requires Web sites that operate within the state to provide documentation that all escorts who are advertised are at least 18 years old. The law is the first of its kind in the nation.
Child advocates applaud the passage of the legislation. Other states are likewise considering similar legislation in an effort to curb child sex trafficking. But there are supporters of the law who remain concerned about the possibility of challenges on the grounds of limiting free speech, and some question how effective the measure will be.
Andrea Powell, who heads FAIR Girls, an advocacy group for girls who have been sexually exploited, told the New York Times “I don’t think it’s going to be the solution they’re looking for. It might reduce the volume of ads, but the ultimate goal is to shut that section [of escort magazines] down. There’s no way with an escort section that pimps aren’t going to post there. They’re not going to just stop posting on Backpage[.com].”
Backpage.com became the largest mainstream platform for escort ads after public pressure prompted Craigslist.com to remove its escort listings in 2010. Craigslist had been criticized by advocacy groups and by state attorneys general who said the site wasn’t doing enough to help combat sex trafficking and other sex crimes. On Aug. 24, 2010 attorneys general from 17 states wrote to Craigslist demanding that it close the sex-related section of its site, and company officials complied.
But Backpage.com, which is owned by Village Voice Media Holdings– which also owns the New Times– plans to keep its escort listings, and may challenge the Washington law in court.
“There’s going to have to be a challenge to it,” said Liz McDougall, Village Voice Media Holdings’ general counsel. “Otherwise it would effectively shut down an enormous portion of the Internet that currently permits third-party content.”
McDougall was also the private attorney whose firm represented Craigslist during its 2010 showdown with state officials.
Critics say the new law might have an impact on Web sites and chat room forums that don’t pertain to escorts but where adult content may be posted.
After several high-profile sex trafficking cases in the 1990s, in 2003 Washington lawmakers passed the first state law that criminalizes human trafficking. Legislators increased the prison sentences for child sextraffickers in 2010. Last year, Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn pulled the city’s advertising from The Seattle Weekly, a publication that is owned by the Village Voice.
Washington State’s attorney general, Rob McKenna, a candidate for governor and the president of the National Association of Attorneys General, made child sex trafficking a highlight of the Association’s agenda when it met in Seattle last month. McKenna wants Congress to amend the 1996 Communications Decency Act, which critics say provides loopholes for traffickers that were not anticipated when the federal law was passed nearly two decades ago.
That law could make it easier to challenge Washington’s law—and those passed by other states—in court.
State Senator Jeanne Kohl-Welles, the sponsor of the new law, said she and others spent more than a year working on language that the American Civil Liberties Union and some newspaper groups eventually supported.
“We provide the means for them to have an affirmative defense,” Ms. Kohl-Welles said of the escort sites.
“That is, if they can document they verified the age of the individual being portrayed. We think that’ll do it.” .