PETITION: Authorities must shut down Pornhub after showing rape videos of 15-year-old trafficking victim. Sign the petition here.
February 12, 2020 (LifeSiteNews) – An effort to shut down the largest pornography website in the world has been launched after the organization was caught saying that it had “verified” as a “model with valid 18+ ID” a 15-year-old victim of human trafficking who was shown being raped in dozens of videos uploaded to the site.
Laila Mickelwait, of the pornography abolition organisation Exodus Cry, has posted screenshots from Pornhub’s social media accounts showing them saying that the girl is “a verified model with valid ID.” Those posts have now been deleted by Pornhub, but are cached (and so still available to view) online.
Pornhub’s official Twitter account admitted that they “verified” the 15yr old girl who was trafficked and raped in 58 videos that were uploaded to the site. Shortly after realizing they admitted complicity, they deleted the tweet but it was already cached elsewhere. This is it. pic.twitter.com/Rz9aFJPfrD
— Laila Mickelwait (@LailaMickelwait) February 10, 2020
Mickelwait is now calling for the company that owns Pornhub, MindGeek, to be shut down.
She told Faithwire that the company is is “making money off of the exploitation, rape, and trafficking of hundreds if not thousands of women and girls who are victims, and their crime scenes are being hosted on their website.”
Mickelwait explained that in order to get an account “verified” on Pornhub users simply have to take photos in which they are holding pieces of paper with their usernames scrawled on them. She said that this means their policy “is set up to enable exploitation and trafficking under a facade of actually having some form of protection.”
According to Mickelwait, such a process means there is “no way” for Pornhub to confirm either the consent or the age of those participating in the uploaded videos.
Pornhub will allow anyone to upload with just an email address and will “verify” anyone with a photo & piece of paper w/ a username written on it. No Gov issued ID required. This means the company is intentionally aiding trafficking of children and trafficking of adults. #PornIs pic.twitter.com/qelg9QQSJu
— Laila Mickelwait (@LailaMickelwait) February 6, 2020
Mickelwait described pornography websites as being run by “criminals and mega-pimps” and said that “the onus of responsibility is not just on the traffickers and those who are raping the girls; it’s on the website that is not only hosting these videos, but profiting off of them. And that’s what makes them a mega-trafficker.”
Micklewait’s expose of Pornhub comes the same week as mainstream media covered the story Rose Kalemba, who says that she begged the online pornography site for six months to remove videos on their website showing her being raped at just 14 years old. Kalemba, now 25, says that Pornhub only took action and removed the videos after she threatened legal action.
Jonathan van Maren of LifeSiteNews has noted that these events reveal that Pornhub’s viewers are getting sexual enjoyment out of what, in some instances, turn out to be horrific crimes.
“The porn industry and the abortion industry reduce women and children to meat, feeding them to carnivorous consumers in a culture that has lost all sense of right and wrong. A culture that respected women’s rights would be outraged at the fact that millions upon millions of people entertain themselves by watching girls get sexually violated and thrashed onscreen, but our culture pretends that “women’s rights” means that if any children show up unexpectedly, they can be hastily shredded and discarded so that the show can go on,” van Maren observed.