Amazon’s online market is being used to facilitate sexual exploitation and predation.
Not only does Amazon.com feature thousands of pornography-related items in numerous categories, but it is facilitating the sale and distribution of sexually explicit material that normalizes and encourages the objectification and exploitation of women and children.
I'm especially shocked that Amazon.com is selling books featuring photography collections of eroticized child nudity by Jock Sturges and David Hamilton. These publications contain numerous images that many, including experts on child sexual exploitation, consider child pornography. These are not images reminiscent of a family photo album of children at bath time. These images are haunting displays of provocative child nudity, of prepubescent and adolescent children—many of which display their pubic areas or genitals.
If a man in your neighborhood took these pictures of your child, you would not call them ‘art.’ You would call the police.
Further, Amazon.com sells child-like sex dolls and clothing that pornifies women and infants, and books that are essentially sex trafficking “how-to” manuals.
Action: visit http://endsexualexploitation.org/amazon/. Here you can email executives to ask them to remove this exploitive content and learn more. There is also a proof portion on this page to validate our findings.
(This episode is now working, thank you for your patience!)
The holidays are often thought of as the most wonderful time of the year. However, for victims of domestic violence, the holidays can be a very dark and scary time.
This kind of abuse (whether it’s physical or sexual) is often more likely to occur when stress levels are high, and unfortunately holiday seasons bring their fair share of stresses. Unrealistic expectations, financial strain, and alcohol can increase stress, and lower inhibitions to domestic violence.
On Thanksgiving Day and Christmas Day the National Domestic Violence Hotline reports a decrease in calls. Nearly 53 percent fewer. Whether survivors don’t want to disturb family cohesiveness on these days, or can’t find a private time to make a call for support, advocates say the decline isn’t necessarily an indication that violence ceases on these days, reporting that calls will often increase above normal levels the days and weeks following a holiday.
According to the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence - On average, nearly 20 people per minute are physically abused by an intimate partner in the United States. During one year, this equates to more than 10 million women and men.
It can be very difficult to spot an abusive situation.
The majority of abusers are only violent with their current or past intimate partners. One study found 90% of abusers do not have criminal records and abusers are generally law-abiding outside the home.
Some warning signs:
Common suggestions for loved ones of those in abusive situations include:
RESOURCES:
A surprising number of public libraries do not have pornography filtering software and a much larger number employ ineffective filtering software that children and adults are bypassing to gain access to all kinds of pornography while at the local library.
This leads to problems not only for the health of individuals using pornography, but also to problems of child pornography use and unintentional childhood exposure to pornography.
A few years ago we started getting calls from concerned parents who shared that librarians were refusing to filter out pornography from library computers and Internet because the American Library Association is informing libraries that it's against the First Amendment.
However, the Supreme Court ruled that libraries DO have the right to filter out pornography. Despite losing this battle in the courts, the ALA continues to disseminate misleading information to libraries about their responsibility to keep computers completely “free and unfettered”.
ACTION ALERT:
The American Library Association is refusing to take action.
But YOU can.
Through our Safe Schools, Safe Libraries project, you can download the “Getting Started” packet that explains, from start to finish, how you can get effective filtering in libraries and schools. Several communities have succeeded with this project!
You can also learn more about the American Library Association, and why it facilitates pornography, here: http://endsexualexploitation.org/ala