Originally Published at Cards International
By Mohamed Dabo
An alliance of international campaign groups has formed to push for the prohibition of credit card payments on pornographic websites.
In a letter sent to major credit card companies, a coalition of 10 campaign groups is calling for “the immediate suspension of payments on porn sites”.
Ten credit card companies, including Visa, Mastercard, and American Express, have received the letter from the group claiming include “experts and organisations dedicated to combating sexual exploitation and abuse”.
Pornographic videos of known sex trafficking victims are still being hosted on mainstream pornography websites “at the time of this letter,” the group claims.
The campaigners also argue that a study has reported that “pornography performers experience physical trauma on the film set, often leave the industry with financial insecurity and mental health problems, and also experience health risks that aren’t limited to sexually transmitted infections.”
Pornhub, reportedly the world’s most popular porn site (it received more than 42 billion visits last year, the equivalent of 115 million visits every day) is named in the letter, which states:
“The pornography industry does not judge or verify consent in any videos on their site, let alone live webcam videos. Some sites, such as Pornhub, […] do not require age verification for any person to upload pornographic videos—let alone any metric to measure consent.”
