Internet porn has been around for a long time now, and has been for a good majority of our lives and the lives of people around us. So much that viewing online porn has been considered to be the societal norm. In fact, the average age for an American child to have viewed porn for the first time is 13. But what people are not aware of is how internet porn is linked to human trafficking as well as worsening of mental health in individuals. To start off with human trafficking, internet porn has given the illusion that all the videos are consensual and no one was hurt in the process. But unfortunately this is not true. Pornhub has been aware of the human trafficking that goes on with its website and has for years. A recent example is the Girls Do Porn case. Girls Do Porn was a pornographic studio that uploaded videos onto Pornhub with its legal and finanical consent. However, allegations against the studio for human trafficking have been present since 2006. In 2021, those allegations turned out to be true. Ruben Andre Garcia pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit sex trafficking by force, fraud and coercion. How Ruben went about doing this was by placing ads online promising modeling jobs for sportswear and other types of gig work. He and other conspirators would then book a flight for their victims that would arrive a day or two before the “photoshoot.” When there, the woman there would be forced to perform in sexual videos that they were never told would happen. Traffickers would cancel flights back home, or physically stop the victim from leaving. And when the victim finally agreed, they were told that the videos would not end up online without their permission, which turned out not to be true. Over 100 victims have been identified in this case, and it doesn’t stop at studios. Another case involved a 15-year-old girl who was kidnapped forced to be in a video. Authorities found a receipt for an abortion in the traffickers apartment. The video was uploaded onto Pornhub and spread around the internet. Because of these events, Pornhub deleted 75 percent of its videos online that weren’t verified by them, since the company was summoned to court and have said they took measures to ensure videos like these don’t end up on their website. Which begs the question, why didn’t they do this before? If the company really cared about stopping trafficking, then why were they aware of this for years? The conclusion is that Pornhub has been aware of the trafficking that goes on its website and decided not to do anything about it. Porn is extremely profitable–67 million dollars is how much it is worth and gets about the same online traffic as Google does. 

There are many resources to help prevent human trafficking. To learn more about what the signs of human trafficking are, visit https://humantraffickinghotline.org. If you suspect that someone you know is being trafficked, Call 1-888-373-7888.