Mass. Attorney General Calls on Backpage to Take Down Its Adult Section

Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healy on Tuesday called upon the popular website Backpage.com to remove its adult section.

In a statement, Healy said, “As we have seen through our office’s work, Backpage.com and the Internet have become increasingly popular vehicles for commercial sexual exploitation.”

Healy added that most of the human trafficking cases that her office sees specifically involves ads from the site.

“It is clear that Backpage must do more to end the kind of exploitation that is advertised every day on its site. Today, I am calling on Backpage to immediately shut down the ‘adult’ section of its website – a long overdue step that I urge them to take now.”

According to the evening news on WCVB, Backpage had not yet responded to Healy’s request.

Backpage’s adult section, which includes one in Massachusetts, includes sections on “escorts,” “body rubs,” “strippers and strip clubs,” “dom and fetish” and several others.

The plea from Healy was instigated by a recent murder in Burlington, where suspects allegedly used the site to lure escorts and prostitutes and rob them, reported the Boston Herald.

Healy took her message to Twitter, stating, “I’m calling on Backpage to remove the Adult Section from its website” with a link to her statement.