Activists at UN Connect Trafficking to P*rn

By | August 2, 2024

NEW YORK, August 2 (C-Fam) Anti-trafficking advocates and a sexual abuse survivor spoke to a UN conference calling on the international community to recognize the negative impact of sex trafficking and warn against the “unmistakable link” between sex trafficking and pornography.

While some influential UN bodies support the full decriminalization of prostitution and promote its recognition as a legitimate form of labor, the Philippines Mission to the UN, Exodus Cry, and C-Fam (publisher of Friday Fax) hosted a UN side event linking the pornography industry with the increase in demand for the sexual exploitation of women and girls.

Antonio Manuel Lagdameo, Ambassador of the Philippines to the UN, said “The issue of the demand that fosters the exploitation of women and girls is not given much attention in trafficking discussions.” Lagdameo spoke against normalizing “the idea that women are primarily sexual objects” and said that “pornography, whether legal or illegal, perpetuates this culture of violence and this mindset that degrades women.”

Helen Taylor, Vice-President of Exodus Cry, a national non-profit organization advocating for the abolition of commercial sexual exploitation and trafficking said, “Those of us who work in the anti-trafficking field know that the supply of trafficking is fueled by a demand and that pornography fuels demand by marketing a fantasy.”

During her work at Exodus Cry, Taylor interviewed former sex buyers and found that “a common thread that emerged is that every sex buyer we interviewed had been exposed to pornography as a child.”

Taylor urged UN member states to protect children from online pornography by implementing age verification requirements, “Every nation that allows children to access devices and technology must take action quickly…kids deserve our greatest fight so let’s protect children, not big porn.”

Victoria Galy, a date rape survivor and advocate against image-based sexual abuse, testified against Pornhub in 2019 and confronted it to take down pornographic content produced while she was sexually abused. The videos were never taken down. While on the brink of tearing up, Galy confessed, “It has taken me years to process this trauma and fully understand everything that has happened.”

“Pornhub and other porn sites have created an environment that allows criminals to flourish…It is my hope that we can pass laws that protect children and get victims the right to have all abuse videos removed, even when they are edited, altered, or deep fake,” Galy continued.

Testifying the “alarming trend of children sexually assaulting other children,” Heidi Olson, Certified Pediatric Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner, warned that “an increasingly common theme [they] are hearing from offenders is that pornography is what led them to harm other children” and said we need to act “because we are losing a precious generation of kids who believe sexual violence is the norm.”

Cole Allen Johnson, who runs a nonprofit advocating for age verification legislation in the state of New Jersey, shared his story of being exposed to porn as a child and referred to pornography as “the main driver of human trafficking.” Johnson said it “cultivates a demand in men who otherwise would have been sexually normative by perverting their sexual tastes through an ever-escalating porn addiction.”

Iain Corby, Executive Director of the Age Verification Providers Association, spoke about age verification technology to protect children online being “convenient, accurate, cheap…secure.” Corby said implementing such technology is “pretty straightforward if we have the political will to do so” and that it would not violate user’s privacy as tech companies can now use “estimation” tools where only a selfie or a voice sample is needed for AI to figure out the user’s age.

New Jersey Assemblyman Jay Webber attended the UN event to report on a bill he introduced that would make New Jersey the 20h state to have an age verification law. “Age verification will radically reduce…our youth’s exposure to online pornography,” said Webber.

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