In an op-ed published May 17 in The Columbus Dispatch, Tony Talbott, interim executive director of the University of Dayton Human Rights Center, says online commercial sex ads are on the ropes and it's time to deliver the knockout.

Talbott, who also is chair of Abolition Ohio at the University of Dayton, a member of the Ohio Attorney General’s Human Trafficking Commission and a credentialed Not For Sale Campaign citizen investigator of human trafficking, targets critics of the Stop Enabling Sex Trafficking Act/Allow States and Victims to Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act (SESTA/FOSTA) of 2018 in the piece.

"It is simply not the case that shutting down Backpage and other sites will drive the sex trade 'underground' and make it impossible to track," Talbott wrote in response to those who say closing Backpage, USA Adult Classifieds and other online commercial sex websites actually disrupted ongoing investigations, ruining months of police work aimed at finding and recovering sex trafficking victims.

Read the entire op-ed on The Columbus Dispatch website here.