Trump signs anti-sex-trafficking bill

13:11, 12 April, 2018

YEREVAN, APRIL 12, ARMENPRESS. US President Donald Trump signed a measure Wednesday aimed at curbing online sex trafficking, marking a rare bipartisan victory in Washington, CNN reports.

The new law paves the way for victims of sex trafficking to hold websites accountable for knowingly facilitating sex trafficking.

"Trafficking is probably worse today than at any time in our history," the President said during the signing ceremony. "You are not alone."

While the problem is chronically underreported and there is no official estimate of the total number of victims in the US, an estimate from advocacy group Polaris puts the number of victims nationally "into the hundreds of thousands when estimates of both adults and minors and sex trafficking and labor trafficking are aggregated."

The legislation, called the Allow States and Victims to Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act (FOSTA), but also referred to as SESTA after the original Senate bill, cuts into the broad protections websites have from legal liability for content posted by their users.

The bill passed easily in both the House and Senate, but faced some opposition from lawmakers who worried that smaller internet companies would face frivolous lawsuits or lack the resources to police content they shouldn't be held liable for.

English –translator/editor: Stepan Kocharyan


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