Teenagers Stand Up to Backpage
NOV. 1, 2014
Nicholas Kristof
IF prostitution of children is illegal, why is it that we allow an estimated 100,000 underage girls and boys to be sold for sex in America each year — many on a single American website, Backpage.com?
Now 17, she says she was sold for sex on Backpage when she was 15 and 16; she estimates that she was raped 1,000 times as a result. She is seeking damages and whatever injunctions the court finds appropriate, but she is not explicitly seeking to close down the entire Backpage site.
Some readers may scoff that this is about censorship of free speech. No, it’s about human rights — because one of the most searing rights abuses in America is the sexual exploitation of children.
Americans rightly waxed indignant at the way the Roman Catholic Church or Penn State turned a blind eye to the sexual abuse of minors. But our entire society does the same thing.
アメリカのとあるサイトで未成年者の性的人身売買が公然と行われており、この点についていまだに見て見ぬふりをしているのはいかがなものか、と。
見て見ぬふりをしているのはそれだけではあるまい。
The little amount of pages American journalists spend on sex slaves for U.S. military is astonishing, compared with the enormous amount of words they have spent on the issue of sex slaves for Japanese military. When we take into the fact that Japan apologized to the women and compensated while Korea and the U.S. have never faced up to the history, it is scandalous.
