Independent UN Experts: Porn Websites Complicit in the Sexual Exploitation of Women and Girls

15 May 2026 Human Rights

In accordance with the relevant statement, Special Rapporteur on Violence against Women and Girls Rim Al-Salem and Special Rapporteur on the Right to Privacy Ana Brian Nuguerres spoke.

They emphasized that businesses cannot evade responsibility for complicity in human rights violations. “It is necessary to draw a red line,” human rights defenders declared.

“Systems that facilitate the sexual exploitation of women and girls and profit from it cannot be regulated simply by superficial measures—they need to be opposed at a fundamental level,” experts emphasized.

They called on the governments of the USA and Canada to hold the company Aylo legally accountable and to require all websites with user pornographic content to implement a system of age verification and third-party consent. The special rapporteurs also noted that other platforms, such as Xvideos and X.com, allow the posting of pornography without age verification or consent.

“Operation is supported by monetization of the platform and participation of payment networks and search systems,” the rights defenders stated.

They also noted that victims themselves often engage in removing content posted without their consent. Often, materials remain online despite numerous complaints.

“They are subjected to constant retraumatization, even many years after the incident, as long as defamatory and obscene materials continue to circulate online,” the special reporters stated.

“States must urgently introduce mandatory measures for Pornhub and other digital platforms that distribute pornography,” they emphasized. Such measures, in addition to verifying the age and consent of all persons featured in the videos by a third party, include monitoring and moderation, as well as the obligation to remove images with scenes of violence and exploitation of children and adults.

Experts noted positive steps taken by Aylo, but pointed out that the changes occurred only because the victims began to openly speak out about themselves and file lawsuits (over 25 lawsuits in total), as well as due to the actions of the U.S. Federal Trade Commission.

“Overall, these actions have led to Pornhub deleting a large portion of its library since 2020 – more than 50 million unverified photos and videos,” human rights defenders said. According to them, Aylo’s reaction clearly shows that the company cannot deny its many years of activity related to the distribution and monetization of “the traumatic experience of exploitation victims.”

In December 2023, the US Department of Justice reached a deal with Aylo, under which the company will pay fines and compensation to individual victims, as well as agree to external monitoring for three years. If the conditions are met, the charges will be dropped in 2026 without a verdict being issued.

Experts expressed concern about this deal, noting that the US government failed to achieve full criminal liability for Aylo and that this creates a risk of strengthening the principle of corporate impunity.

“The contrast is striking: individual people go to jail for human trafficking, while the corporate structure that facilitated the criminal activity and profited massively from it avoids prosecution,” experts concluded.

Human rights defenders brought these issues to the attention of Aylo, as well as the governments of the USA (the country of citizenship of some victims) and Canada (where Aylo’s headquarters is located). In addition, they sent appeals to financial networks previously used to pay for content on Pornhub, such as Mastercard and Visa, and to internet companies providing traffic to Pornhub, including Google LLC, Meta, and Microsoft Corporation.

Special rapporteurs are independent experts appointed by the UN Human Rights Council. They are not UN staff and do not receive a salary for their work. The experts act in a personal capacity and do not represent any government or organization.