Laila Mickelwait: Child Sex Trafficking and ‘Big Porn’

Laila Mickelwait joins Tim to talk about her work and a movement she founded to fight child sex trafficking.  She’s the founder of the Justice Defense Fund and the founder of a global movement called #Traffickinghub. That movement is supported by millions around the world. Laila talks about the role “Big Porn” websites play, and her work to hold sex traffickers and their enablers around the world to account.

child sex trafficking

We’ve talked a lot on the Shaping Opinion podcast about big issues where statistics are involved. Sometimes when we use statistics, we inadvertently distance ourselves from what we’re really talking about – what’s really going on.

That could happen with today’s episode. I have to share some statistics with you, but as you’ll hear from our guest, it’s not about the statistics. It’s about the people, mostly female, mostly young, and all too often children who are victims of the worst kind of predators. They’re victims of sex traffickers.

Child sex trafficking is the most notorious form of human trafficking. The most common victims are homeless children, runaways, and young people in the child welfare system.

You would think the traffickers make their money from selling the children into sex with strangers, and they do. But that’s not where they make the big money.

The big money is right in front of you. It’s on your phone, on your computer. The Internet.

Pornography is one of the biggest businesses on the Internet.  But just calling this “pornography” may be too nice.  Website and porn sites and porn site users engage in an economy that often features child abuse.

Victims of child sex trafficking are depicted in photos, videos and other images that feature actual rape, real violent attacks and abuse. People pay to watch the live abuse of children on video streaming services.

Porn sites attract over 100 million visits to their sites each day. They generate 47 billion visit per year.

If you were to try to watch all of the content in one year of a major porn site, it would take you 169 years just to watch it.

One of the most vocal activists in the war on sex trafficking, and more specifically child sex trafficking, is Laila Mickelwait.

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About this Episode’s Guest Laila Mickelwait

Laila Mickelwait Laila Mickelwait is the Founder and CEO of the Justice Defense Fund and the Founder of the global #Traffickinghub movement supported by millions around the world. She has been combating the injustice of sex trafficking for over a decade and is a leading expert in the field.

The #Traffickinghub movement that Laila continues to lead, is a non-religious, non-partisan, decentralized global effort to hold Pornhub, the 10th most visited website in the world, and the largest pornography website in the world, accountable for enabling and profiting from the sex trafficking and criminal sexual exploitation of countless victims. The Traffickinghub petition has been signed by over 2.2 million people from 192 countries. The effort is endorsed by over 300 organizations and the impact of the movement has been covered in thousands of media pieces globally.

Laila received her Master of Public Diplomacy degree from the Annenberg School of Communications and the Dornsife School of International Relations at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles in conjunction with the U.S. Department of State.

During her previous roles with the organization Exodus Cry, Laila has presented at conferences, universities, corporate events and has advocated for legislative reform at the United Nations, and to lawmakers in numerous countries, including Australia, Austria, Brazil, Canada, France, Hong Kong, Israel, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, South Korea, Spain, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and the United States.

Laila previously founded New Reality International in 2007, an organization dedicated to serving those most vulnerable to trafficking, that holds special consultative status with the United Nations.