Pornhub 'profited from child rape' but never paid compensation, allege victims
Victims of child rape have taken to social media to slam Pornhub, one of the largest purveyors of adult movies.
The website has come under fire in the past months for its content that allegedly consists of films depicting sex trafficking and rape of minors. The victims claim they contacted the website multiple times and asked for the content to be taken down.
Last year, a blog post by one Rose Kalemba surfaced where she claimed that she had been raped when she was 14 and that a video of the horrific act had been uploaded on Pornhub.
"Reminder that despite all of Pornhub’s publicity stunts to present a charitable image, they’ve paid exactly 0 dollars in reparations to myself or any other children whose rapes they allowed to stay up on their website, making them serious $ & further traumatizing us," Kalemba tweeted on April 3.
"Pornhub removing my videos over half a year later after I had to impersonate a lawyer to get them to do so, didn’t undo all of the additional senseless trauma. Millions saw them & who knows how many downloaded them," she added.
Kalemba claims she still continues to get messages from people who have seen her video.
In 2009, when she was just 14, Kalemba says she was approached by a man and was forced into a car at knifepoint. The two men allegedly raped her over a period of 12 hours while a third man filmed parts of the assault. Kalemba claims she was beaten black and blue and stabbed on her left leg.
The men allegedly threatened to kill her and Kalemba says she begged them to spare her life saying she wouldn't reveal their identities. She says that's when they dumped her on the street some half-an-hour away from her home.
"The titles of the videos were 'teen crying and getting slapped around', 'teen getting destroyed', 'passed out teen'. One had over 400,000 views," Kalemba told BBC in February 2020.
"The worst videos were the ones where I was passed out. Seeing myself being attacked where I wasn't even conscious was the worst," she wrote.
Kalemba allegedly emailed Pornhub multiple times in 2009 asking them to take down the videos because she was a minor and had been assaulted. She claims she received no response from the website and alleges that the videos remained online for a long time.
The videos only disappeared when she allegedly posed as a lawyer and emailed them threatening to take legal action.
Another alleged victim that came forward with her story was Avri Sapir, who claims she was abused as a child and forced into child porn until she turned 15.
"A few weeks ago, videos of me when I was a toddler, in diapers, being raped were uploaded to Pornhub. The videos were left up for hours, days. One got over 600 views. They were monetized with ads," she said in a tweet on March 30.
According to Sapir, most of the videos remained online overnight and removed only the next morning. She claimed that the videos where she seemed older, i.e. 9 or 10 years old, were online for even longer. She says it took her a whole day to flag them before they were finally removed.
The more views these videos garnered, the longer they remained on the site and the more they were monetized, Sapir alleges in her thread. "Pornhub actively profited from my rape," she said.
"This company does not care about consent, age, legality, or morality. All they care about is the view count so that they can show you more ads. They do not care about victims, or the torture and trauma they put us through by victimizing us again and again," she added.
"Pornhub MUST be held accountable. Not only for what they've done to me but what they have done and are currently doing to thousands of women and girls all over the world", she said.
MEA WorldWide (MEAWW) has contacted Pornhub for an official statement, which they have assured they will provide us with soon.