Man charged with pimping teen runaway:

Police in San Antonio, Texas arrested 32-year-old Ysidro Esquivel for allegedly prostituting a 16-year-old girl on Backpage. The girl was a runaway who Esquivel allegedly took explicit pictures of in order to turn her out on Backpage. He made her go on about 10 dates.

Ok, hold up for a second. These meetings between johns and sex trafficking victims should not be called dates. They’re not going to an ice cream social, these girls are basically being violated for money. Let’s call them what they are, paid rapes.

Anyway, Esquivel plied the girl with cocaine in order to get her to stay awake and when she tried to leave he said that she can’t because she belongs to him now. I would almost guarantee that was said under some threat of violence.

These pimps and traffickers treat their victims much like an abusive third world farmer would treat their field animals. Backpage is fully aware of this and not only does little to stop it but there has been no real repercussions against them. What will it finally take before something is done about the sexual slave trade that Backpage willingly provides at a profit?