'Dirty baker's dozen': 13 companies facilitating sexual exploitation

By Samuel Smith, Deputy Managing Editor Friday, February 07, 2020

Visa

NCOSE is calling out the financial services corporation Visa for partnering with the pornography industry to process payments for pornography.

During the rollout event, NCOSE Executive Director Dawn Hawkins called on Visa to stop providing “the infrastructure to the sexual exploitation industry.” 

“Visa is supporting and normalizing the pornography industry despite the impact that it has on public health or people in pornography indirectly,” she said. “The pornography industry is not just another industry. The pornography industry has bragged about spending more than $1 million to actively lobby against protections meant to ensure that children and minors are not used in mainstream pornography.” 

Hawkins said that popular pornography websites that Visa partners with have “been caught hosting videos of sex-trafficked women and children” and also post “videos of children being sexually abused.” 

“When women come to these websites asking that the videos of their abuse be taken down, they refuse to and they instead make millions of dollars using Visa’s payment processor,” Hawkins said. “Is this the kind of content that Visa is willing to endorse?”