Over a million people demand shutdown of Pornhub over child porn, exploitation videos

The campaign is led by anti-trafficking expert Laila Mickelwait

Pornhub joins a growing number of online services that have made their content free or easier to access in a bid to keep people indoors | Reuters (File) Representational image | Reuters

Over a million people from across the globe have signed in a petition demanding the shutdown of Pornhub, which is the world's largest porn site, for allegedly gaining profit from trafficking and exploitation of women and children.

Led by anti-trafficking expert Laila Mickelwait, the petition cites several cases of videos involving rape, child rape, and trafficking and exploitation of women and children being featured on the website to substantiate their demand for the shutting down of the website.

The campaign was endorsed by over 300 anti-trafficking and child protection forums and signed by people from from as many as 192 countries. The campaign also calls for justice for the victims of sexual abuse and exploitation.

Pornhub, which offer free access to viewers, had as many as 42 billion visits last year, say media reports. In the past, several people have accused the website of profiting from videos of them facing sexual assault being featured on the website.

Recently, the BBC had published the story of a woman who was raped at the age of 14 and the video of the incident making its way to the website. The woman reportedly had to go through a lot of trouble, including threatening the website with legal action, to make Pornhub take down the video.

Last year, there was an incident of the mother of a missing teenager in South Florida coming across the videos of her daughter being featured on the website months after the girl went missing. Investigations revealed that the girl was featured in as many as 58 sexually explicit videos, many of which were featured on Pornhub and a few other porn websites.

In a recent article that appeared in Washington Examiner, Mickelwait had written: "Pornhub is complicit in the trafficking of these women and minors and probably thousands more like them," and pointed out that despite generating millions are revenue, the website "has no system in place to verify reliably the age or consent of those featured in the pornographic content it hosts."

"The site is set up for exploitation and is infested with videos of the real rape, trafficking, abuse, and exploitation of women and children. We have significant evidence and it is just the tip of the iceberg," Cision PR Newswire quoted Mickelwait as saying.

Earlier this year, on the occasion of International Women's Day, a protest was staged in front of the main office of the website in Montreal, Canada.