Village Voice Media, the parent company of LA Weekly, continues to be targeted by activists fighting against child sex trafficking. The source of the controversy is the adult services ads on the VVM-owned classified advertising website Backpage.com. Despite numerous documented cases of pimps using the site to sell sex with trafficked women and children, VVM has resisted calls to shut down the highly profitable section.

With the advertisement below, sponsored by social service organization FAIR Girls, activists hope to increase public pressure on VVM to remove prostitution ads from Backpage.com. The ad, which will first air this Sunday on ABC’s This Week with George Stephanopoulos, encourages viewers to visit the FAIR Girls website, where they can sign a petition urging VVM to shut down the adult services section on Backpage.com.

The controversial adult services section of the classified ad site Backpage.com gained more high-profile critics this week. A number of musicians, including Alicia Keys, Rosanne Cash, Talib Kweli and members of the bands Pearl Jam, R.E.M., and The Roots have signed a petition against the adult ads, on the grounds that they are used by human traffickers to sell women and children sex slaves.

Backpage.com is owned by Village Voice Media, publishers of 13 alternative weeklies including the LA Weekly. The corporation has run articles in all 13 papers to downplay the frequency of child sex trafficking and attack critics, most famously Ashton Kutcher.

But this week the VVM papers have been uncharacteristically silent on the issue, despite both their new celebrity critics and a segment on Tuesday’s Nightline about the controversy. Is it possible the company has finally decided to stop compromising their journalistic integrity by using editorial pages to promote a corporate agenda? Let’s hope so.

The classified advertising website Backpage.com makes approximately $22 million a year from escort ads, and a portion of those ads are selling victims of human trafficking. Nicholas Kristof gave a voice to one of those victims in an op-ed for the New York Times, where he once again made the case for the website’s closure.

As a minor, ‘Alissa’ was trafficked by pimps on Backpage.com. Alissa was her street name; she told Kristof she didn’t want to use her real name for fear Village Voice Media, the owner of Backpage.com, would retaliate. And VVM has in the past used the editorial pages of their newspapers, including the LA Weekly, to mock critics.

Kristof acknowledges that sex trafficking is a complicated issue, that many of the prostitution ads on Backpage.com are placed by adult women of their own volition, and that simply closing down the site won’t make sex slavery go away. And sex workers have come forward to argue that closing Backpage.com would make prostitution more dangerous, not less.

But to a victim like Alissa, providing any forum for trafficking is unacceptable. “For a Web site like Backpage to make $22 million off our backs, it’s like going back to slave times.” she told Kristoff.

(Photo: Ashley Gilbertson/VII / The New York Times)

Commie Girl is getting artsy. 14 months after leaving her gig at the OC Weekly (and really, who could blame her?) The funny girl has landed at CityBeat, taking the post of Arts Editor.

Former OC Weekly editor Steve Lowery (who also quit the Weekly after the Village Voice Media’s takeover) will be the new editor, taking over from Steve Appleford.

Congratulations guys! We just hope the new moves means Rebecca will be writing again on a regular basis. We miss you, Commie Girl!