Justice Defense Fund
- United States
After fifteen years of fighting the injustice of sex trafficking I have finally seen unbelievable breakthrough in 2020 through the movement I founded called #Traffickinghub. The aim of #Traffickinghub is to combat sex trafficking, online child sexual exploitation and image based sexual abuse on Pornhub, the 10th most visited website in the world. The Elevate Prize can help continue to put the pressure on this global multi-billion dollar mega-corporation as well as facilitate an important domino effect that will hold the world's largest user generated content websites accountable for enabling and profiting from sex trafficking, child sexual abuse and all forms of image based sexual abuse.
2020 Highlights:
- 2.5 million signatures from 192 countries on the Traffickinghub petition
- 33 million views on the Traffickinghub short animated video
- 4000+ media articles worldwide covering the impact of the work to hold Pornhub accountable in 2020
- 300+ organizations formally endorsed the movement
- Traffickinghub inspired ongoing grassroots protests internationally
- 625 organizations from 65 countries and 200+ survivors issued a joint letter to the Canadian government demanding criminal investigations into Pornhub. 70 members of parliament from eight parties responded by issuing a joint echo call for criminal accountability.
- Traffickinghub in partnership with Freedom United and the National Center on Sexual Exploitation inspired activists to send thousands of emails to the CEOs of the major credit card companies demanding they stop business with Pornhub because of the companies role in facilitating trafficking. In December after a NY Times expose, Visa, Mastercard and Discover cut ties with the company.
- Pornhub was forced due to insurmountable pressure to delete 80% of its content, totaling 10 million videos. The company also upended its entire business model.
- Five major lawsuits were filed against Pornhub on behalf of victims of child sex trafficking, adult sex trafficking, child pornography, and image based abuse. Three of these lawsuits were class action suits on behalf of trafficked minors.
- Three important bills were introduced in US Congress to help stop and prevent mass sexual crime and child exploitation online.
- The success is having an important domino effect on the rest of the Big Porn "tube" sites facilitating trafficking and child sexual abuse.
- Mastercard changed its global policy to help prevent exploitation on Big Porn tube sites by requiring age, ID and consent verification for every individual in every video on an adult website.
This is only the beginning of what can be done to help end the global injustice of trafficking, child rape, and image based abuse on Big Porn and Big Tech sites.
BIO:
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.
In addition, Laila is guiding the development of a safe home and women’s empowerment program for vulnerable young women aging out of the orphanage system in Haiti through New Reality International, an organization she founded in 2007 that holds special consultative status with the United Nations.
The #Traffickinghub movement that Laila continues to lead, is a non-religious, non-partisan, non-centralized 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.
Her work has been featured in hundreds of news articles around the globe, in outlets such as The New York Times, The New York Post, BBC News, CNN, Bloomberg, Reuters, AP, CNBC, Fox News, The Washington Post, The Washington Examiner, The Guardian, and many others.
Goals:
I want to see the world's largest sex trafficking and image based abuse websites held accountable for the exploitation of countless victims and laws changed to prevent this abuse from happening in the future. This means criminal prosecutions, mass civil litigation on behalf of thousands of survivors, and legislation adopted nationally and internationally to prevent these forms of criminal sexual abuse.
The Justice Defense Fund (JDF) is a non-partisan, non-religious organization dedicated to empowering survivors of sex trafficking, child sexual abuse material (previously known as “child pornography”) and image-based sexual abuse to pursue justice through sustainable, strategic litigation funding. We also advocate for the adoption of laws that prevent sexual abuse and provide the most recourse to victims.
In addition to the work described above, I personally continue to lead the viral, global Traffickinghub public awareness movement.
Recent media coverage and published legislative work:
BYLINE TIMES 3/18/21“Meet the campaigner taking on the world’s biggest porn platform”
CBC 3/4/21 Survivors, NGOs call for criminal investigation of porn giant MindGeek
LAW360 2/12/21 Pornhub Faces Class Action Lawsuit Over Child Sex Trafficking Videos
WASHINGTON EXAMINER 1/10/21NEW YORK POST 1/8/21>span class="title">Pornhub parent slapped with $600M class action lawsuit over child porn
DAILY MAIL 12/17/20Ex-PornHub moderators reveal life inside explicit video site being sued for 80m
BBC 12/16/20Pornhub sued by 40 sex trafficking victims
CNN 12/15/20 Pornhub removes a majority of its videos after investigation reveals child abuse
CTV 12/10/20 Pornhub execs called to testify in federal committee as Ottawa looks at taking action
NEW YORK TIMES 12/7/20 Visa and Mastercard to Investigate Financial Ties to Pornhub
FOX NEWS 12/4/20 Legislation guaranteeing 'right' for sex trafficking victims to sue Pornhub
- We believe in the power of a global diverse movement to hold mega-trafficking corporations accountable and change laws. No one lone organization can make the kind of impact that is necessary to stand up to the largest multi-national corporations who are facilitating sex trafficking and criminal sexual abuse. That is why we partner with hundreds of organizations, millions of individual advocates from all ideological and political backgrounds, and lawmakers from all political parties nationally and internationally.
- Sex trafficking exists because there is money to be made from it. We understand that money speaks to international corporations making hundreds of millions of dollars from business models that are set up to facilitate criminal exploitation and trafficking. We use the power of financial pressure by pushing critical financial institutions to hold major corporate trafficking facilitators accountable.
- One thing is certain, the abuses will stop once the financial RISK of exploitation outweighs the REWARD of allowing it to continue. JDF is leveraging the motivating factor of monetary loss to help put an end to the injustice of sex trafficking. We know that financial accountability and injunctive relief are vastly underutilized tools in the fight against mega-traffickers and we have developed a model where we can sustainably fund civil lawsuits on behalf of victims against corporations facilitating trafficking in order to reign them in and provide justice for survivors.
We are empowering victims to pursue justice and enabling them to create a blueprint for successful litigation against their abusers. Through this we are giving attorneys nationally and internationally the confidence to pursue sex trafficking cases against some of the biggest multi-national corporate abusers.
We are also raising up and inspiring a global movement of accountability against Big Porn and Big Tech sites that are enabling and profiting from mass sex trafficking, child sexual abuse and image based abuse. This movement consists of millions of individual advocates, hundreds of organizations, journalists around the world, hundreds of sexual abuse survivors as well as lawmakers from all parties.
Case Study:
Pornhub is the largest and most popular porn site in the world. In 2020 it was the 10th most trafficked website in the world. In 2019 it was reported that Pornhub had 42 billion visits per year, 115 million visits per day and 6.8 million videos uploaded. MindGeek, its parent company, holds a monopoly on mainstream internet porn globally. The NY Times recently called it a "titan" multi-national corporation making nearly half a billion dollars per year. MindGeek owns most of the world's most popular porn "tube" sites which have been exposed by the Traffickinghub movement as being infested with the real, monetized sexual abuse of children, sex trafficking, criminal assault and image based sexual abuse. The injustice of Pornhub and its parent company MindGeek enabling and profiting from these sex crimes is a global problem, impacting victims in every country in the world.
Victims have said that when their rape and abuse is uploaded and monetized on the world's largest mainstream porn sites it is the "immortalization" of their trauma. Whether they are victims of child rape or "revenge porn", these victims suffer lifelong serious consequences due to the fact that the worst moments of their life will live on in the digital space being used for profit and pleasure long after they are gone.
When Pornhub was forced to delete 10 million videos in December, we were contacted by victims from around the world who said for the first time their filmed rape and sex trafficking crimes scenes were finally removed after years of fighting to get them taken off the site.
In addition to civil, criminal, and corporate action, the Traffickinghub movement has inspired critical child protection legislation. Laws have been introduced in countries around the world to prevent child access to Big Porn tube sites as well as to prevent children from being exploited in sex crime videos being distributed on these mainstream sites.
- Women & Girls
- Children & Adolescents
- 3. Good Health and Well-being
- 5. Gender Equality
- 12. Responsible Consumption and Production
- Advocacy