Craigslist Under Pressure From 17 Attorney Generals

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Craigslist’s is back in the headlines as 17 Attorney Generals join forces to have them remove an advertising section that allows adult service advertising and is open to encouraging prostitution and child trafficking.

Arkansas, Connecticut, Idaho, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Maryland, Michigan, Missouri, Montana, New Hampshire, Ohio, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and Virginia Attorney Generals, a total of 17, have all signed the missive which has been sent to Craigslist owners and CEO.

The Attorney Generals say that the adult services section on Craigslist should be removed, due the organisations in ability to police the section properly to eradicate the “prolific” use of service ads for adult and child prostitution.

A recent open letter to the owners of Craigslist, published by the Washington Post and San Francisco Chronicle, is being used to back up the Attorney Generals case that women and children are being exploited via Craigslist’s classified ads section. The letter was from two girls who claim to have been exploited and trafficked via the Craigslist adult services section.

In response to the open letter Craigslist published a statement on their blog calling for Police to make available any information to allow them to investigate the allegations fully. They also stated that they had implemented a more rigorous manual screening process for ads placed in the adult services section and had rejected more than 700,000 ad applications since May 2009.

“your much-touted ‘manual review’ of Adult Services ads has failed to yield any discernible reduction in obvious solicitations.” said the Attorney Generals in their letter.

This weeks letter is an escalation in pressure after Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal issued a subpoena in May of this year requesting documented details of the ‘manual screening’ process along with revenue details pertaining to the adult services section.

The Attorney Generals letter states “No amount of money, however, can justify the scourge of illegal prostitution, and the suffering of the women and children who will continue to be victimized, in the market and trafficking provided by Craigslist,”