unanswered for another 25 years. you can find out more on that story and many of our other top stories on our website, the address at the bottom of your screen is www.aljazeera.com. that's www.aljazeera.com. stay tuned. i'm ali velshi, and i'm devoting the show to the trafficking of children as sex workers, a crime most think happens somewhere else. it's happening here in the united states. tonight - we bring you the story of a 15-year-old girl sold for sex online. hundreds of times. and the website that listed her for sale. mary snow has the story. >> we did everything with the kids. that was our philosophy as being parents.

trouble. >> reporter: tom was a stay at home dad, his wife nicole a preschool teacher. they lived a typical life when the youngest of three children entered high school. >> she was part of a national junior aimish society. played violin, volunteered at the school, and was on the soccer team, was an all child. >> reporter: then the all american child did something unexpected. she disappeared without a trace, leaving behind a note. >> you'll bedisappointed in me because i was messing up in school. so i told them i was going to go and experience seattle. i was excited. go hang out. i didn't really know what i had coming.

i didn't really thing all that through how quickly did your life change? >> pretty darn quick. quick. >> what happened next is the reason why we will refer to her as natalie. and we will only see pictures of her in shadow when she -- not in shadow when she was younger. >> i was raped. and had to worry about being killed. of being beaten or raped again. >> reporter: she escaped out of a basement window. i received a call that said "we have your daughter, come pick her up." >> it broke my

heart. - everything innocent about my daughter was on. and everything thing that you hope that your child will find had been taken from her. not by somebody who loved her. not by somebody who cared. but by somebody who just wanted self-gratification. and it was devastating . >> we tend to her immediate needs like school, the important things, which we thought was important, was that she continue her school, that she, you know, continue with her band, continue with soccer. >> we prayed. we felt love would fix it. how long did that last.

>> that lasted about three months. at which points she was lured back out of the house. >> was there a letter this time. time. >> reporter: how do you know? >> tom had gone upstairs to check on her. when she came home the first time tom wore a cross around his neck. he gave her the cross, she wanted to wear it. >> reporter: you found the cross in her room. gone? >> yes, i did. that's when i knew that it was really bad. >> reporter: natalie was in contact with the older girl she met at the shelter in seattle, with the promise of a better life in california. natalie never made it. she was introduced to a 32-year-old man in seattle who would become her pimp. how did he win your trust? >> i was fooled. and alone.

homeless. i guess i was willing to trust him. i don't know why. i don't know how. i was 15. i just thought that. this is about me. they read the bible and talked about building the church. >> meanwhile her family was frantic. she posted flyers, gave them to hotels, everywhere and anywhere. you're stuck. you're stuck in one moment in the world. and you pray for end. >> it was killing me. images of what could possibly be happening to your child. and you just can't.

spinning. >> you reached a breaking point. >> i was driving along doing my research. i saw a pimp and somebody that he was with and i wanted to hurt him with my truck. i lost it. i lost control. >> what happened? >> aim the truck at them. floored it. at the last second, i snapped myself back in to reality, and avoided hitting them. and i said that was it. i went to the store and got some booze and came home and then i was done, done looking. >> natalie was not an a street corner. she was trafficked on a second

largest ad listing service on the internet. backpage.com. >> he took pictures of me, took fake names and stuff. he would take a prepaid card or something. and just go on to the back page and post an app. and just post me as an app. post? >> daily - maybe maybe 10, 15. my phone would probably ring for anywhere from an hour to two hours straight. >> and what was the reason he gave you for using that page. >> he said it was better than being on the street. he said it was safer. >> natalie realized the plan she thought was her saviour was her tapp tur. >> he spoke to me.

every day. every night. for 100 plus days. he sold me. he did it on backpage.com. >> i heard from her 47 days after she left home. snu. >> she called me from a payphone. it was my birthday. that she loved me. and that she couldn't come home because she was a bad daughter. and we wouldn't want her. and will she hung up. i was scared. especially after he started beating me, i was scared that

he'd kill me. i met one girl one day, and the next week she was dead. so i don't know what was possible at that point. i thought i was stuck for the rest of my life and i told my mum that on the phone, that i couldn't leave, and that i loved her. and i was sorry. >> did you have no idea where she was. >> no idea where she was. >> took us 11 days to find the phone booth. >> what was in? >> nothing. >> and the empty phone booth on the side of the road. >> at this point we had to see the last place she was, we knew she was alive. >> it's a never-ending cycle of anguish and helplessness. you are not used to feeling those types of feelings as a guys, a man.

you want to get yourself back in control. i didn't have any control. >> 61 long days after the phone call at 2 in the morning. nicole and comgot a call that natalie was alive. she was arrested as part of a sting operation. >> it's really confused. i didn't know who my parents would be. >> you haven't seen your child. you wanted to go in and hug her and make sure she was fine. that's not what i got. that's not who i found. >> who did you find? >> a stranger. she was angry at her dad and i, she was in love with an individual that had sold her and couldn't understand it because it was a lovely, happy, go

lucky individual. now, i was looking at this person who was just angry at everyone except the one person who i thought she should be angry at. >> reporter: when we return, the fight to get natalie back, and ack, and

we continue now why natalie's story as a victim of child sex trafficking. >> this is the kind much moment nicole didn't know whether she'd experience again with her daughter after natalie ran away and was trafficked for sex on the internet. >> my daughter was a statistic, in less than 36 hours, she was being sold. it doesn't take a long time. >> gone for 108 days, raped, beaten and trafficked by a loved.

>> it was maddening. i don't accept the amount of times that she was sold. i think that was awful. here, 15-20 times a day. i couldn't imagine that. it was during an encounter that natalie was found. her trafficker posted an ad of her on backpage.com. the job-largest website. the police answered the ad during a sting. i discovered that you could order a child online like you could a pizza from dominos. she was sold there. >> nicole found out that natalies was a kid believed to be sold for sex. without prictions, traffickers can post ads with children.

the guy that trafficked me, he would - it was after you were done setting up what the page would look like, all you do is click post, and a little notification comes up, asking are you over the age of 18. >> no one asked you for any proof. no date of birth, nothing. he sold me. every day. every night. for 100 plus days. >> nicole and tom knew that natalie would need more than a person's love to recover. >> i was angry. for making an impulsive decision that would cost us big too. >> over tim the family began to heel.

the man convicted was sentenced to the national 26 years in prison. she got a g.e.d. and started to take college classes. >> there's no way i can get my childhood back. there's no way i can. make up for lost time. it made things for me a million times worse, a million times worse. i guarantee that if i had of been part of the website i would have found a way around that. >> the family decided to take a stand against backpage.com. >> it's something you don't believe is here. seriously. >> they joined a lawsuit filed

by an attorney who represented two other minors trafficked on the same site. >> our website is about how back page assists to sell children. >> at the heart of the value is a 20-year-old law written when the internet came of age. it's called the communications decency act, written to protect information and innovation on the internet. it does that by granting immunity to websites. >> we are focussed on why they are responsible for the creation and development of at least some of that content. >> backpage is arguing in this case, as it has in the past, that it's not responsible for content others put on the site. it says it's working with law postings. >> the website could be liable for the content it creates. that's not the case, because

plaintiffs admit that the ads were authored, created and posted by the pimples who victimize them. >> my baby was held captive, was raped and sold. >> reporter: while the legal battle played out in court. nicole has taken stock in >>. >> we made it our administration in life to tell other people that this happens in the united states, and it's our goal to end it, to end the sale of kids. >> natalie has a family of her daughter. >> my parents told me when i was younger that you can look out your front window. but the second you go outside, it's a big world out there, and, you know, it eats you up and spits you out. i never believed that until i experienced all this.

the family left washington state. for them it holds bad memories around every corner. they are working on rebuilding their lives elsewhere. >> my daughter that left when she was 15, has not come back. >> the daughter i have now is recovering. and the she is a very strong individual. and she's - you know, she takes it one day at a time. but in the changes everybody. >> where does your mind take you when you think of what could have been? >> all kinds of places. i knocked it out of the park with the

kids. i think about it a lot. they just did it so well. but, you know, we are okay up next, the general counsel general counsel

you heard natalie's story, a 15-year-old girl trafficking for sex. now we hear from the website.

liz mcdougall is general counsel. you heard the young woman say if not for the web page, she'd be pound sooner. she said backpage was safer than being out on the street, and a lot of money was to be made. do you worry that backpage is paving a road for the pimples? >> no. my heart goes out to natalie and her family, and i understand how she feels because of her experience, but the reality is not that one website is responsible or could be responsible for what happened to her for the perpet use of prostitution, sex trafficking, child sex trafficking. we have sex work in society, legal and illegal, that is not going away soon. >> you told us that you generate 400 ads a month that you send to

the groups that police or try to find missing children. you know that 300 or four times a month you are seeing things trafficking. >> we make 300-400 reports a month for ads. these are ads that third parties place, that we have identified as potentially involving minors, that's is not something that we voluntarily. >> in other words you or someone in the organization believes that these are potentially... >> we believe minors at risk. >> right. we are, to my knowledge, the only website that has such a robust programme for trying to children. >> in a brief, this is the national center for missing and exploited children. that's what you said in the ads you suspected. they are supporting in washington state, saying that they have had mixed luck.

let's listen to the executive division. >> they were actively reporting to the cyber chip line. we feel that in order to better protect children, you'd do more than mere reporting. >> we do substantially more than mere reporting and the national centre is aware of some of our methods. some they may not be aware of. we do not only advanced moderation, second moderation, and then the reporting. we have a report, so if someone is concerned about an add we didn't see, they can report it to us, it can be escalated for activity. >> a lot of cases brought against you, and you prevailed in some of them are about section 2230. a law written in 1996.

it's meant to say if you are an internet vehicle, you are not responsible. fair girls is an organization trying to help trafficked children, and they try to place an ad in backpage in the escort section. they were rejected for putting it in that section, it was determined that it would go somewhere else. they said it speaks to the idea that you guys have editorial control of what goes into the ads, you make choices, tips, advice on how to place them into a section called escorts. >> we don't have the tips or advice, we have the control of any online publisher, which is precisely what 230 protects. >> this is an ad to say to girls that might have been underage or traffic, we help you, here is a phone number, we will not judge

you, that was not allowed in the section. >> they say. look at the context of the ad. go back to the conversations we had with them. i think what you are missing here, again, what fair girls fails to point out is that if you go to the first page of the escorted section, the second sponsored ad on every one is an ad for a hot line and a residential home for child prostitutes motivation. i have read a lot of your stuff, i think you believe it. you come from a place where you believe in the freedom of speech. there's a group that makes the back page, that earns 36 million from ads in 2012, some say it's a conservative estimate. how lucrative is it. is that the reason to get out of the business. >> no, it's not.

i'm not sure how it's estimated the numbers. >> is it low or high. >> it's not something - we are a private company. the reason for continuing in this is because it's the right thing to do. >> that sounds weird. it's the right thing to do to be prostitutes. away. >> it's not the assumption. it's not the right thing to do. i get that the website exists. >> it exists. and the perpetrators, the pimples, will use the internets. do you want them to use an internet website that is looking for the illegal contents and the kids and trying to help rescue them, and is washing with law enforcement to get the evidence so you can get prosecutions in these difficult cases? or do you want the content to go on a website that is hosted in russia, and the finances are in

panama, and one, they are not going do do moderation, and law enforcement can't get to them. here there is an opportunity, they work with law enforcement, and they can go to this place. >> people work with them and stay yes, it's nice, an easy way for pimples to traffic kids. you don't have to show up. has that changed? >> you have to put in your age. >> you can make that up. >> you can make it up. >> no one has to prove anything. >> no one has to prove anything, there's no affected age verification technology for websites currently. >> some argue that you are making it easier to happen, that's the discussion. we do not hold you responsible for child trafficking. those are the issues we should be focussed on. and we can help in the issues. >> you get why that is it tricky.

it looks like in the meantime why societial ills are dealt with. >> i get what it looks like. i don't care whatlooks like. i care what the reality is. we are doing more than anyone else. if we shut down it's going somewhere else. i don't anybody could or wood do the drug. >> isn't it saying if i'm on a street corner and go away someone else will do the drugs. >> what we are saying is that if you are on the corner dealing drugs, but you don't deal to kids, you work with the cops, and you'll be - what you'll be replaced by someone that can give a deal to anybody, there are degrees in that case. i reject the analogy of us as a drug dealer, we are not doing anything that is illegal, we go out of our way to avoid contents

that are illegal. the fact is that somebody will host the content. do you want someone to be a good guy about it, or someone that doesn't give a hoot about the problem . >> it's been a year since the shooting of michael brown, an unarmed black teenager by a white police officer. brown's death brought outrage that had been simmering for years to the surface, thrusting the city of ferguson, missouri on to the world stage. a year later, that community is bracing for another weekend of protests. while the family of michael brown try to ensure that he did not die in vain. ferguson - one year later. it's