Once again it looks like the RINJ women’s fight to end child sex trade will be with Facebook [Meta] and other digital social media ventures which they say are “guilty of knowingly and willfully selling children, a criminal offence in the United States, and making $billions off the traffic,” according to a spokesperson for The RINJ Foundation.
Video: “Parents selling their children to traffickers is more common than anyone realizes,” says Karinna Angeles, a nurse with The RINJ Foundation in the Philippines. In the past two years of the pandemic, some 3 million babies were born, and a large percentage were sold along with the older siblings. And guess where they [the children] are being sold? Facebook,” she added.
By Melissa Hemingway and Micheal John
The paradox of global child sex trade crime-prevention versus starving parents who sell their children is a conundrum RINJ Women face with their 10th Annual End Child Sex Trade campaign.
Another challenge the global civil society group faces is the massive numbers of children who are released into the global child sex trafficking world by:
the Ukraine War.
And as a subset of the Ukraine War to some extent, massive food and fuel shortages around the world are causing parents in low-income countries to actually sell their children to criminals.
“Buying & selling children in the slave trafficking world is the crime of a sick mind or very desperate, broken, oppressed families,” added Nurse Angeles from Manila. Photo credit: Original art “Blessed Angels” by Anna Steinbauer Creative Commons Lic 4. Adapted by Rosa Yamamoto / Feminine-Perspective-Magazine
RINJ 10th Annual End Child Sex Trade blitz. Don’t buy a kid
Not just in low-income nations, the United States has a problem too with over 200,000 children working as paid sex workers for pimps in the child slavery world.
According to UNICEF, “Most trafficking victims in the United States are USA citizens.”
(a) Any parent, legal guardian, or other person having custody or control of a minor who sells or otherwise transfers custody or control of such minor, or offers to sell or otherwise transfer custody of such minor either—
(a1) with knowledge that, as a consequence of the sale or transfer, the minor will be portrayed in a visual depiction engaging in, or assisting another person to engage in, sexually explicit conduct; or
(a2) with intent to promote either—
(2A) the engaging in of sexually explicit conduct by such minor for the purpose of producing any visual depiction of such conduct; or
(2B) the rendering of assistance by the minor to any other person to engage in sexually explicit conduct for the purpose of producing any visual depiction of such conduct;
shall be punished by imprisonment for not less than 30 years or for life and by a fine under this title, if any of the circumstances described in subsection (c) of this section exist.
“The RINJ Foundation’s 10th Annual Campaign Against Child Sex Slavery was launched today in Toronto, Canada and in Kiev, Ukraine,” says Geraldin Frisque, spokesperson for RINJ Women.
“The campaign will run until 30 June 2023. Several campaign strategy updates are expected in that time as the human slave trade shifts regions with the change in levels and regions of food deprivation causing increased vulnerabilities among women and children,” explained Ms. Frisque who also explained that a statement had been released.
“After enormous fights with Facebook we started a new page on 1 November 2022. Hopefully it is still there,” she chuckled.
RINJ Women are entering a big fight against Social Media Platforms which are selling children.
“Facebook and now Meta did everything possible to block our Facebook is not safe campaign against their money-making rape joke pages. Facebook has done everything to sully our reputation in any way possible, including killing our Facebook page which we had spent thousands of dollars in advertising to promote. It had nearly 260,000 followers, or something like that. Today the just shadow-ban us,” she continued.
“This has been going on for years. Now it is worse. Facebook is back to crime, selling children. Law enforcement say they will do nothing against Facebook because they like to watch the buyers and sellers and try to catch them. But that is not happening. The platform should not be selling children. Period. Facebook needs to be shut down. As in the past, the only way for us to fight the Facebook crimes is from within their world, online,” said Ms. Frisque, angrily.
When asked about 18 U.S. Code § 2251A and how it applies, Ms. Frisque said that her organization intends to prove that “in a de facto sense the social media platform is acting as an agent of the vendor of the children.”
“Our security people know what they are doing, and they spot trouble. Facebook knows this crime of selling kids all over the world from the Facebook pages and groups is happening all over the world our security people tell me. And we have told Facebook, so they know,” she added.
“One year after Facebook became Meta, it’s lost billions and that is why it will not reject the massive action from criminals selling children on Facebook,” said Ms. Frisque.
We are the (Rape Is No Joke) RINJ Women who fought in the 2000s to get the money-making pro-rape and child sex slavery content off social media platforms, ending on 4 November 2011. Some of us collectively decided to continue our work for the universal rights of women and girls. We incorporated on 21 August 2012 after years of fighting as a grass roots organization called The RINJ Campaign. We have no restrictions. That’s our story. We move forward striving for gender equality universally despite the setbacks that have been experienced globally, and despite the attacks of misogynistic authoritarians. |