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PETITION: Authorities must shut down Pornhub after showing videos of 15-year-old trafficking victim Sign the petition here.

MONTREAL, Quebec, March 10, 2020 (LifeSiteNews) — Concerned citizens gathered on a blustery International Women’s Day to protest at the Montreal office of MindGeek, the parent company of Pornhub, for hosting videos of child sexual abuse. 

“Shut it down! Shut it down!” was the frequently chanted refrain as speakers denounced MindGeek in the wake of revelations that Pornhub, the world’s most popular pornography site, had hosted 58 videos of a 15-year-old sex trafficking victim being raped.

Some held signs with messages about Pornhub. 

“Do you want this for your daughter, sister, mom,” was the message on one sign. “Human slavery still exists,” was the message on another. 

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“Is your pleasure really a worthy $$ for her freedom?” was the message on another. 

Many carried signs with messages simply saying “shut it down.”

Laila Mickelwait, of the California-based pornography abolition organization Exodus Cry, broke the story in February along with evidence that Pornhub subsequently admitted it had “verified” the girl as a “model with valid 18+ ID.”

News has now resurfaced that the girl, who was missing for more than a year before her mother identified her in online pornographic photographs, was forced to have an abortion by her male abductor. 

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LifeSiteNews has launched a petition calling for Pornhub to be shut down, and is questioning how many of the 98,000 “amateur models” the porn giant boasts as being featured on its website are actually women and minors – victims of sexual trafficking – who have been or are being raped on camera. The petition has gone viral and is now close to 33,000 signatures. News broke today that Republican Sen. Ben Sasse of Nebraska called on the US Department of Justice to launch a formal investigation of PornHub and its parent company MindGeek over the hosting of the videos showing the minor human-trafficking victim being raped.

The Sunday protest, attended by about three dozen people, was intended to publicize that Pornhub is run by MindGeek, a publicity-shy corporation operating out of a nondescript office building, where it employs some 800 people and pulls in annual revenues of $800 million.

The “corroborated evidence that the company is aiding and profiting off of the sex trafficking and sexual exploitation of women and children” has sparked public outrage, according to Traffickinghub, Mickelwait’s campaign to shut down Pornhub, which sponsored the demonstration.

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“Can you imagine being raped as a child, then your abuser posting your rape to Pornhub, adding to the trauma a multitude of suffering?” Maylissa Louby told the protestors, a diverse group that included self-described “radical feminists” and rosary-carrying Catholics.

According to thorn.org, an online platform fighting child pornography, “more than 30 percent of victims are now being recognized in public,” said Louby, an intervention counselor at La Sortie, a Montreal support center for victims of sexual exploitation.

“Sex trafficking is so lucrative it has now become the second most criminal activity in the world,” she told the crowd. 

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And just as women are lured into prostitution, so they are “promised a good life through the porn industry just as a way to get them to do the act, then they are left devastated,” added Louby.

According to a Traffickinghub press release, “PayPal recently pulled its services from the site amid evidence surfacing that over 118 instances of child sexual abuse were found on the site by the Internet Watch Foundation. These instances are seen as just the tip of the iceberg.”

Quebec Independent Senator Julie Miville-Dechêne was mildly heckled when she told the rally she wanted Pornhub regulated to “make sure it has the consent of all the participants” in the millions of videos of often violent hardcore sex acts uploaded to its site.

“I do not advocate myself shutting it down,” she said.

“Shut it down!” yelled someone in the crowd. 

“Shut it down! Shut it down!” people chanted after the senator finished her short address. 

Georges Buscemi of Campagne-Quebec Vie, who attended the demonstration on behalf of LifeSiteNews, has been publicizing the little-known fact that MindGeek is the parent company of Pornhub. 

His conversation with John-Henry Westen about his investigations into the history and people behind the shadowy company can be viewed here.

Pornhub has 42 billion visits annually, 115 million visits per day: and 39 billion searches performed by site users.

Sign the petition here asking authorities to shut down Pornhub.