Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps her Department is taking to stop commercial websites partly or wholly dedicated to advertising prostitution from facilitating trafficking for sexual exploitation and other sexual offences.

Tackling modern slavery, including online sexual exploitation remains a top priority for this Government, and we are committed to stamping out this abhorrent crime. Since its introduction, the Modern Slavery Act 2015, has given law enforcement agencies the tools to tackle modern slavery, with maximum life sentences for perpetrators and enhanced protection for victims, including children.

We know that traffickers may use adult services websites (ASW) to advertise victims of modern slavery for sexual exploitation and that is why we are working closely with law enforcement partners and online companies to ensure they live up to their responsibilities of preventing their services from being used for criminal activity. Through Project AIDANT, the series of National Crime Agency-led operational intensifications, operational activity to target exploitation associated with ASWs has increased.

Furthermore, under the Online Safety Bill, all in scope companies will need to take action to prevent the use of their services for criminal activity. Illegal content will need to be removed expeditiously and the risk of it appearing and spreading across their services will need to be minimised by effective systems. For priority categories set out in legislation, companies will need to take particularly robust action. This includes sexual exploitation offences contained in the Sexual Offences Act (2003). For these offences, companies will need to consider the necessary systems and processes to identify, assess and address these offences based on a risk assessment. This might mean more resource for content moderation or limiting algorithmic promotion of content.

The Home Office is also providing £1.36m over the next 3 years to ‘Changing Lives’ for their Net-Reach project, which will tackle Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG) online, providing early intervention and targeted support for women and girls at high-risk of commercial online exploitation and the risk on online sexual harm.