Exodus Cry

The organization began in 2007 as a weekly prayer group founded by Benjamin Nolot, a filmmaker and member of the charismatic Christian International House of Prayer. Nolot is currently the CEO of the organization. Exodus Cry says it is no longer directly affiliated with the church, but is faith-based and does offer prayer instruction on its website.[3][4]

In February 2020, the organization's Director of Abolition, Laila Mickelwait, launched a petition to shut down the adult website Pornhub. Mickelwait's #Traffickinghub campaign was co-sponsored the National Center on Sexual Exploitation, an anti-pornography organization formerly known as Morality in Media. By September, the campaign had gained over two million signatures, and on December 10, following an opinion column by New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof alleging the site was being used to share sex abuse videos,[5] Visa and Mastercard stopped allowing Pornhub to accept credit card transactions.[6]

In the wake of the campaign against Pornhub, sex workers said that the loss of credit card processing will most impact independent performers, who use the platform to sell directly to fans.[7] The Sex Workers Outreach Project called religious groups pressure on Mastercard and Visa a "war against sex workers" in which "many sex workers will be forced even further into the margins."[8]  

In 2017, Exodus Cry released Liberated: The New Sexual Revolution, a documentary film filmed during Spring Break condemning hook-up culture and casual sex. The film was shown on Netflix and at various college campuses. The film and the organisation were criticized with claims that it should have disclosed the group's alleged religious background, and director Nolot's historic opposition to abortion and LGBTQ rights.[9][10][11] In November 2020, actress Melissa McCarthy and HBO pulled their planned charitable support of the organization, after learning that founder and CEO Nolot had once compared abortion to the Holocaust, and condemned gay marriage.[12] Exodus Cry denied it was anti-LGBTQ and that Nolot's personal views were not relevant to the overall mission of the organization.[13] While Exodus Cry's website and #Traffickinghub campaign claim a non-religious non-political concern with sex trafficking, the organization "opposes decriminalizing or legalizing sex work and wants to abolish porn altogether," according to Vice.[14] In 2017, the organization altered its mission statement to remove all references to Jesus Christ and prayer.[15] On December 1, 2020, The Daily Beast reported that Exodus Cry spokesperson Laila Haddad Mickelwait had filed declarations supporting two men working with Exodus Cry accused of sexual harassment and posting death threats against Dr. Nicole Prause, a scientist whose high-profile study disputed the existence of porn addiction. "It's ironic to me that they claim to support women, when they’re actively advocating for men who are sexually harassing and intimidating women,"[16] Dr. Prause said. On December 18, 2020, the International Slavery Museum pulled their planned collaboration with the organization based on Nolot's views on gay marriage.[17] Exodus Cry denies it was anti-LGBTQ, and stated that Nolot's personal views were irrelevant to the overall mission of the organization.[13]

• Official website