VANCOUVER, Wash., March 06, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Shared Hope International, a national leader in the fight against domestic minor sex trafficking, today shared its support for the March 8 protest that calls for Pornhub’s parent company MindGeek to shut down the website for allegedly aiding and profiting off of the sex trafficking and sexual exploitation of children.



Shared Hope is a nonprofit led by former U.S. Congresswoman and Washington state lawmaker, Linda Smith.

The following is a statement from the organization:

“We support the Pornhub protest taking place this weekend outside of MindGeek’s headquarters. There were 18.4 million reports of child sexual abuse imagery online in the last year – making up more than one-third of all such reports in the entire history of the internet. We cannot be a society that fosters a culture normalizing sexual harm against children. Pornography websites like Pornhub play an enormous role in conditioning viewers to tolerate the sexualization of and violence against youth, as well as the objectification of women and girls. Because of the great demand for child sexual abuse material in our society, traffickers and exploiters regularly record their victims so they can trade or sell the imagery. Pornhub cannot permit – let alone profit off of – this exploitation and allow videos of rape and violation of children on their site. We stand with the protesters calling for the website to be taken down.”

ABOUT SHARED HOPE INTERNATIONAL

Founded in 1998 by then U.S. Congresswoman Linda Smith, Shared Hope International strives to prevent the conditions that foster sex trafficking, restore victims of sex slavery, and bring justice to vulnerable women and children. A non-profit Christian organization, Shared Hope engages in diverse activities that confront sex trafficking in communities throughout America. Our efforts include training first responders and community members to identify warning signs of trafficking and employ intervention techniques to rescue child trafficking victims; providing restorative services to affected children and women; and offering legislative support to those focused on strengthening laws that fight child sex trafficking. Our vision is to coordinate a national U.S. network of protection to improve the response to victims of trafficking. We believe we can create a world where every survivor is surrounded by trained professionals, an alert community, just law and policy, knowledgeable service providers and appropriate shelter options.