The subject line for the online escort ad read, "Sweet Petite The Ones Guys Want To Meet."
The ad claimed the escort was 19 years old and included photos of "Celia," wearing a low-cut bra.
Suspecting something amiss, police set up a "date" with Celia. When she arrived at a Seatac hotel on June 3, detectives discovered her true age: 17.
The ad featuring Celia appeared on Backpage.com, a website owned by Village Voice Media. After the bust, Mayor Mike McGinn demanded VVM, which also owns the Seattle Weekly, toughen ad screening to help prevent the sex trafficking of minors. He told VVM Seattle police had linked ads in the adult services section of Backpage.com to four local cases of underage sex trafficking.
Last week, he asked that all escort ads be pulled.
While acknowledging VVM had ad-screening policies in place, McGinn said they needed to be strengthened.
"It's time to reexamine your policies," he wrote in a July 1 memo. "We must do better."
Village Voice Media contends it's already doing enough.
Andy Van de Voorde, executive vice president of VVM, said his company employs roughly 100 people to screen all adult ads, to ensure photos include no sign of nudity or sex acts.
"If we see any sign that an ad might refer to somebody underage, we do not post it, but refer it to law enforcement," Van de Voorde wrote in an email to Real Change.
Backpage.com, he noted, lists more than adult ads: The site hosts employment, real estate and used car ads for more than 300 cities around the world.
Only one type of ad concerns Seattle city leaders. McGinn has a standing meeting with SPD officials to discuss child sex exploitation in Seattle, said Aaron Pickus, his spokesman. When Seattle Weekly ran a June 29 story refuting national statistics about child sex trafficking, the mayor asked Police Chief John Diaz to investigate ads listed on Backpage.com, Pickus said.
McGinn's letter to VVM detailed the results of that investigation:
"In 2011 alone, SPD detectives uncovered four documented cases of child prostitution openly advertised on the Backpage.com website."
Pickus said there was a way for
Backpage.com to help put an end to sex crimes involving young people. "They need to screen for minors before posting their advertisements," he said.
Tim Keck, publisher for The Stranger, said the print weekly has a simple policy: "We check ID's of advertisers."
The Stranger's adult ad policy requires that anyone wishing to place an ad must visit its office to present a "valid picture ID stating you are 18 years old or older." An Adult Model Release Form must be signed for every model in each photograph. The Stranger, said Keck, publishes approximately 40 escort ads each week.
A VVM document entitled "Backpage.com Safety & Security Background," dated the same day McGinn contacted the media conglomerate, states the company has a "Child response process used to prioritize child related matters." The company's safety and security measures also note that ads "containing possible minors [are] investigated and referred to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children." The procedures do not require an ID for posting ads.
It's unclear just how many minors have been pulled into sex trafficking or prostitution. A recent national campaign led by actors Ashton Kutcher and Demi Moore estimated that 100,00 to 300,000 underage people each year are involved in sex trafficking across the country. The June 29 article published in Seattle Weekly disagreed with that figure and mocked the campaign.
After a two-month study that examined 10 years of records for 37 of the nation's largest cities, the article, which ran in VVM-owned papers around the nation, claimed there had been only "8,263 arrests across America for child prostitution during the most recent decade."
Locally, those seeking to bring light to child sex trafficking often point to a study, commissioned by the city in 2008, that estimates 300 to 500 people under 18 are involved in prostitution in the Seattle area each year.
On July 8, a week after McGinn began his campaign to get VVM to scrutinize ads more thoroughly, he cancelled all city advertising in The Seattle Weekly.
On July 15, the mayor met with VVM representatives. At the meeting, he demanded VVM remove all escort ads from Backpage.com, ads that can be linked through the Seattle Weekly's website.
As for Celia, the young woman detectives met at the Seatac hotel, she told detectives that she had tried several times to remove herself from prostitution, but was always drawn back in. What she really wanted, she said, was to go back home. The information she provided to detectives led to the arrest of a woman, charged with promoting sexual abuse of a minor.
On July 16, the day after McGinn met with VVM officials, Celia turned 18.