CBA Record Feb-March 2017

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YLS Special Issue lPROTECTING OUR CHILDREN
32 FEBRUARY/MARCH 2017
Backpage announced it had closed down
the adult section of the site (J. Gerstein,
Under Senate Pressure, Backpage Shutters
Adult Section, (Jan. 9, 2017),
available at , but
experts allege the ads have merely moved
to other parts of Backpage (D. Hawkins,
Blocks Prostitution Ads in
U.S. Under Pressure for Sex Trafficking:
Statement (2017), available at http://bit.
ly/2mj31w6.).
In 2015 Congress amended federal
anti-trafficking law with the SAVE Act,
which makes knowingly running advertise-
ments that cause prostitution by force or
coercion or with those underage criminal
(SAVE Act, 2015, 18 U.S.C. § 1591(a)).
Although experts believe that enforce-
ment of this provision would be difficult
because of the “knowing” requirement,
the documents secured from Backpage
demonstrate that the Internet provider
was put on notice of potential trafficking
and did nothing but hide the evidence in
the edited ads. Now Backpage finds itself
in the crosshairs, facing criminal charges
that may deter other Internet providers as
well. Thanks to the persistence of Senators
Claire McCaskill and Rob Portman, and
the actions of several state attorney generals
and Sheriff Dart, we may be reaching the
beginning of the end of Internet adver-
tisements for sold sex, which would be
a large step against trafficking for sexual
exploitation. We now can probably expect
more lawsuits against Backpage by traf-
ficking survivors, like the one discussed
below.
Hotels
Early in 2017, attorneys filed a lawsuit on
behalf of a formerly trafficked teen in the
Circuit Court of Houston County, Ala-
bama against Choice Hotels International
and Backpage (K.R. v. , No.
38-CV-2017,-900041.00 (Cir. Ct. of
Houston Cnty., Ala. Jan. 25, 2017)), com-
plaint available at
Choice Hotel holdings include Quality
Inn, Comfort Inn, Econo Lodge, Sleep
Inn, and Rodeway Inn. The victim, K.R.,
a runaway fromMississippi, was kidnapped
by the trafficker, who placed ads for her
sexual services on Backpage. K.R. ulti-
mately escaped from the hotel and walked
8 miles before finding someone who alerted
police. The trafficker was found guilty
of human trafficking and distribution of
drugs to a minor in a Houston County
court and sentenced to 50 years in prison.
In 2009 a young child was raped and
killed at a Comfort Inn in Fayetteville,
North Carolina, and the holding company
had to be aware of the fairly large number
of recent trafficking arrests that occurred
within their hotels across the country, the
complaint alleges. It also claims that the
Alabama Quality Inn should have known
that trafficking was occurring when K.R.’s
trafficker stayed at the hotel for 40 nights
a year, paid using cash, reserved two rooms
next to each other for an extended stay,
and checked in with a young girl who was
visibly under the influence of drugs and/or
alcohol who was not allowed to leave the
hotel.
Choice Hotels International, the
complaint asserts, has benefited from the
trafficking, and has failed to take reason-
able efforts to stop the crime; K.R. seeks
damages for this negligence. The complaint
maintains that as the vast majority of sex
trafficking occurs in hotels and motels,
these should be the “first line of defense
against illegal prostitution and sex traf-
ficking of children.” Hotels do have warn-
ing signs of trafficking: payment by cash
only, older men or women with a younger
female, reservation of two rooms close
to each other, a lack of luggage, refusal
of cleaning services, regular requests for
towels, and numerous men coming and
going from the rooms or congregating at
the door (George, E. R. & Smith, S. R.,
In good company: How corporate social
responsibility can protect rights and aid
efforts to end child sex trafficking and
modern slavery, 46 Int’l L. & Polit. 55-113
(2013)). Mandatory employee training
programs and protocols for employees
on trafficking are an urgent need. Again,
lawyers, through suits like these, have been
in the forefront of efforts to hold those neg-
ligently supporting trafficking accountable.
Hotel rooms are often used in Cook
County for prostitution assignations
that may involve trafficked individuals.
In reviewing 56 stings the Cook County