Sen. Ben Sasse (R-Neb.) is asking the Department of Justice to open an investigation into the website Pornhub and its parent company MindGeek.
Sasse is calling for the investigation after complaints surfaced that Pornhub has streamed “video of raped and exploited women and children.”
“This is pretty obvious: any company that profits from rape, trafficking, and exploitation must be held accountable,” Sasse said in a statement to Faithwire. “The reporting on Pornhub has been gut-wrenching. Pornhub and its parent company MindGeek must not escape scrutiny. The Department of Justice needs to take the first step of opening an investigation.
“In several notable incidents over the past year,” the senator said in a letter released Tuesday morning, “Pornhub made content available worldwide showing women and girls that were victims of trafficking being raped and exploited.”
According to FaithWire, Sasse’s request also followed a protest earlier this week at one of MindGeek’s headquarters in Montreal, Canada. The protest was held on International Women’s Day and attendees said they were concerned the company is profiting from “actual, real sex trafficking and rape.”
“I think it’s frankly horrifying and shocking for people, and it’s very motivating to take action,” Laila Mickelwait, one of the protestors, said.
In early February, a petition was launched, calling on the site to shut down because of concerns that the site was generating revenue from videos of assault, coercion and trafficking of women and children. The petition has more than 439,000 signatures.
Last fall, investigators discovered some 60 videos of a then-missing, 15-year-old girl. Police were able to connect the kidnapping to a 30-year-old Florida man. He was arrested and the girl was returned to her family. She told police that she had been pregnant with the man’s child, and he took her to an abortion clinic.
In another case, investigators found evidence that 22 women were lured and coerced by pornographer Michael Pratt into performing sexual acts for videos that were later uploaded to Pornhub without consent.
Photo courtesy: ©Getty Images/Drew Angerer/Staff
Amanda Casanova is a writer living in Dallas, Texas. She has covered news for ChristianHeadlines.com since 2014. She has also contributed to The Houston Chronicle, U.S. News and World Report and IBelieve.com. She blogs at The Migraine Runner.
