The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) has come under scrutiny following alterations to its webpage that once spotlighted the dire situation of “international sex trafficking of minors,” according to a report from Natalie Winters with Steve Bannon’s War Room.
The major overhaul of the page, overseen by the Criminal Division of the DOJ, took place on May 12, 2023.
It coincides with ongoing criticism of Joe Biden’s immigration policies, seen as exacerbating the child sex trafficking crisis through unchecked migration across the porous U.S.-Mexico border.
The timing of the change also corresponds with the recent release of the film The Sound of Freedom, a movie about saving children from cartels and human traffickers in Latin America that outperformed the latest Indiana Jones movie at the box office over the July 4th weekend.
Before the update, the webpage, last edited under the Trump administration on May 28, 2020, served as a detailed resource on child sex trafficking.
It presented the types of offenses and outlined the department’s efforts to combat this global menace.
However, critical sections like “International Sex Trafficking of Minors,” “Domestic Sex Trafficking of Minors,” and “Child Victims of Prostitution” were inexplicably removed in the recent revision, Winters notes.
Previously, the page outlined the horrors of child sex trafficking as a crime that transcends borders.
It noted, “One form of sex trafficking involves the cross border transportation of children. In these situations, traffickers recruit and transfer children across international borders in order to sexually exploit them in another country.”
The description further detailed the characteristics of these criminals, stating, “The traffickers can be individuals working alone, organized crime groups, enterprises, or networks of criminals working together to traffic children into prostitution across country lines.”
This international trafficking problem was acknowledged to impact the U.S. as well, with victims hailing from different parts of the world.
The site stated, “Once in the United States, a child may be trafficked to any or multiple states within the country.”
The original webpage also pointed out the domestic issue of child sex trafficking, warning, “The United States not only faces a problem of foreign victims trafficked into the country, but there is also a homegrown problem of American children being recruited and exploited for commercial sex.”
Detailing the harrowing experiences of these children, the previous version of the website disclosed, “Pimps and traffickers sexually exploit children through street prostitution, and in adult night clubs, illegal brothels, sex parties, motel rooms, hotel rooms, and other locations throughout the United States.”
In the remaining section titled “Child Sex Trafficking,” a key paragraph was notably missing from the Biden administration’s revision: “After cultivating a relationship with the child and engendering a false sense of trust, the trafficker will begin engaging the child in prostitution, and use physical, emotional, and psychological abuse to keep the child trapped in a life of prostitution. It is common for traffickers to isolate victims by moving them far away from friends and family, altering their physical appearances, or continuously moving them to new locations. Victims are heavily conditioned to remain loyal to the trafficker and to distrust law enforcement.”
The removal of these sections from the DOJ webpage has led to significant concern among child protection advocates and the wider public.
