Investigation opened on the Sexemodel site following the report of the High Commissioner for Children

The Paris prosecutor's office has opened an investigation into the website Sexemodel, recently renamed "Meslibertines.com", reveals France Inter on Thursday September 10.

The investigation was opened after Sarah El Haïry, High Commissioner for Children, referred the matter to the public prosecutor on the basis of article 40. She also referred the matter to Arcom. According to information from France Inter, this site relays several hundred pages which offer the services of underage girls.

The Sexemodel site is presented as the main platform for advertising escort girls and prostitutes. There are profiles of young girls presenting themselves as being 19 or 20 years old. But the photos in the ads show the bodies of teenage girls, often with their faces uncovered. They notably include the words "skinny", "skinny girl", a code name for minors. They do not stay more than two days in the same city. Their pimps rent rooms, then post the prices of the services on Sexemodel.

“Children are sold on this site,” denounces Michel Amas, lawyer specializing in child protection. He opened several hundred files, all similar. “The idea is always the same. The child is taken from his place, generally homes. And the showcase is this site. The children are bought like on Uber in a few seconds,” he says. “What’s terrible is that there is the pimp’s phone number, most of the time, we geolocate it, and nothing happens,” regrets the lawyer. “That is to say, our children continue to be sold on these networks.”

The main facilitator of this prostitution in France is, according to the France Inter investigation, David Azzato, a Swiss citizen, now exiled in Dubai. In the early 2000s, he created a “Hungarian escort girl agency”. According to information from France Inter, he now earns more than 20 million euros per year thanks to the Sexemodel site, which has gradually forced all prostitutes in France to subscribe, in particular to ensure their safety.

“This site offers a list of dangerous or problematic clients. To be visible for 30 days, the price is 459 euros,” testifies Anaïs de Lenclos, sex worker and spokesperson for the Parapluie Rouge federation. “There is a virtual monopoly. Anyone can register and no one will check the veracity of the photos, the texts, the ages,” she says.

In total, associations identify at least 20,000 child prostitutes in France. The number of victims recorded by the police has increased 20-fold in ten years. To try to close the Sexemodel site, Sarah El Haïry, High Commissioner for Children, says she "has contacted all the entities that can close this site, because it is an emergency and a necessity. I simply remind you that having a sexual relationship with a child under 15 is called rape", she asserts. “So we have to name things and remember the responsibility of the entire chain, from the designer to the predator.” “There will certainly be other sites that will try to emerge,” she warns, “and that is why the sentences must be extremely heavy, and extremely firm.”

The fight against these platforms also comes up against the need for international cooperation. David Azzato has already been convicted of aggravated pimping but the Swiss authorities refused to execute the international arrest warrant against him, as prostitution advertisement sites are legal under Swiss law.

“We know that the company is based in Switzerland. When we send them requisitions, they respond by email,” explains Julien Bataille, head of the Central Office for the Suppression of Trafficking in Human Beings (OCRTEH). “There is an extremely hypocritical posture, they know very well that among the thousands of advertisements, they are guilty of a crime,” he continues. “But the French judicial authority cannot act alone, international cooperation with the Swiss authorities is necessary.”