Research on Johns shows "Craigslist is by far the most efficient medium" for johns
Womensfundingnetwork.org, recently published a survey research study on johns or men buying sex from children online. The research was based on the survey data consisting 218 johns who answered the advertisement on Craigslist.com, Backpage.com, and other internet sites. The participants however were not aware that they were being researched. Also, according to its study goals, the research study states that "the advertisements mimicked other ads on online; the text content crudely described paid sex services with a young female for anyone who called the advertise phone number.The advertisements also included the picture of young female and "a phone number for interested men and told them to call for "sweet, hot girls," "hot perky girls," or simply to "call tonight."
84% transaction is represented by advertisement on Craigslist
The research, stated that the men responded to the advertisements through a phone call only came through Craigslist and Backpage even though it was advertised on other free websites as well. The research team further concluded that Craigslist is " by far the most efficient medium for advertising sex with young females; ads on this site received 3 times as many responses compared to identical ads placed on other sites." After calculating the result of the survey data, the research concluded that Craigslist represents 84% of the transaction involving minor commercial sexual exploitation in Georgia when Backpage and other free websites represent 16% and 0% respectively during the two month period of the survey conducted in fall, 2009.
Survey Results regarding Johns
Among the 218 johns who responded to the advertisements, 44% of them were in the age between 30 and 39, 34% was under the age of 30, and 22% of them were in the age of 40 or older. Also, 65% of them are buying sex from young females in and around suburban metro Atlanta, and 9% of the johns gave locations as near the airport. The research draws the conclusion that travel and tourism play an important role in commercial sexual exploitation of children in Georgia. Also, among the men who responded to advertisements for sex with young females, 30% of them said that they preferred "young female with legal caveat," 12% said "young" but not stated any legal caveat (i.e. she is at least in the age of 18), and 6% said that they explicitly preferred an adolescent.
Willful ignorance
Assuming that most men pay for sex from adolescents either they do not know the age of the girls, or they willfully ignore the age of the girls, the research further conducted an experiment to remove "the ignorance part of the willful ignorance." Therefore, johns were given three warnings in the followingorder:
1) " We' are talking about the really young girl, right?
2) She doesn't look like she's 18
3) I don't believe this girl is actually 18, and I have no reason to believe she is
The research says that overall, 47% of respondents who were subjected to this experiment continued pursing the sex purchase despite all 3 warnings. Moreover, 89% of them continued after the first warning; 81% of that 89% of the first group continued after the second warning, and 65% of that 81% answering the second warning continued regardless of the third warning. The researchtherefore concluded that "Nearly half of men who respond to advertisements for sex with young females would knowingly purchase sex from an adolescent female."
Concluding thoughts
Craigslist 's founder once said that "if Craigslist has any ad on our site in facilitation of such an unspeakable crime is completely unacceptable, and we will continue to work tirelessly with law enforcement to ensure that any such victim receives the assistance they deserve and that anyone committing such a crime is imprisoned." He further added that "criminals foolish enough to place ads on CL relating to trafficking and exploitation are caught by law enforcement, with lots of assistance from craigslist -- hence the arrests you hear about (emphasis added).
For that matter, the research above shows two important take home messages to the advocates: 1) Even if Craigslist is doing the best it can as the founder says it is, its best effort is facilitating child sexual exploitation in Georgia than fighting against it; and 2) Johns' defense that "I didn't know if she were a teenager" should not be a defense against sexual exploitation of children.
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