Mpls. City Leaders Want Backpage.com to Shut Down Adult Section

Minneapolis City Council has joined St. Paul, and other cities across the country in the stand against the adult classifieds section of a website called Backpage.com.

Critics say that part of the site enables sex trafficking of children. 

Thursday, a Minneapolis City Council Committee voted unanimously to approve a resolution calling on the company that runs Backpage.com to shut down the adult section of its website.

According to Minneapolis Police, all 20 child sex trafficking cases investigated so far in 2012 involved juvenile victims being marketed on the site.

Backpage requires users to report trafficking or child exploitation.

Visitors to the adult section are required to click a button verifying that they are 18 or older.

"Regardless of whether they are 18 or over, this is promoting prostitution in a major online publication. It is putting profits, corporate profits, ahead of people's well being," said City Council Member Elizabeth Glidden.

The committee also voted to add language preventing child sex trafficking to the City's 2013 Federal Legislative Agenda.

Thursday's vote is largely symbolic. Backpage says it has no plans to shut down its adult classifieds.