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Cook County Sheriff Thomas Dart has filed a federal lawsuit against ad site Craigslist for promoting and facilitating prostitution. According to Dart, the site has become the largest prostitution source in the United States, and its prostitution ads need to stop. Through this legal action, Dart is seeking the removal of the erotic section from Craigslist.
“This has to stop,” the sheriff said in a press conference with reporters. “This is horrific stuff,” he added, describing testimonies from women that they’ve been sucked into this by friends, after being told it was not such a big deal.
The life stories of women arrested for prostitution are horrific, the sheriff said, yet Craigslist facilitates this. He gave examples of 15, 16 and 17-year-olds arrested for prostitution, who’ve suffered abuses at home, and who fell into the wrong hands.
The sheriff accused the website of knowingly facilitating prostitution: “Somehow we’re all supposed to feel good about it, because it’s a legitimate business. But since when have we felt good about a legitimate business that facilitates a criminal act?” the sheriff continued.
The accusations brought to Craigslist by the sheriff follow older accusations regarding the website’s misuse. The company has been asked before to limit the prostitution services on its website, however, Dart said, nothing happened.
The company said in a statement that misuse of the site is actually extremely rare compared with how much the site is used for legal purposes. However, misuse is not tolerated. The spokesperson however did not mention anything about the lawsuit.
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