50 women are suing Salesforce for allegedly selling its software to an online sex marketplace that pled guilty to human trafficking

• 50 women who say they were sexually abused as victims of a sex marketplace called Backpage are suing Salesforce.
• They allege the San francisco software company, known for its actions on civil rights, helped Backpage run its business by providing software and consulting services.

50 women who say they were sexually abused as victims of a sex marketplace called Backpage are suing the software company they say helped Backpage run its business: Salesforce.

They allege the San Francisco software company, known for its support of women rights and other social issues, helped Backpage run its business by providing software and consulting services, as was first reported by CNBC's Sara Salinas.

Backspace became notorious in the spring of 2018, when the online website, known for its sex ads that included offering women and children, pled guilty to human trafficking charges in Texas. The site was also facing federal charges and charges in other states. In April, 2018, US authorities seized the site's assets and shut it down.

The lawsuit alleges that Salesforce, while publicly decrying human trafficking and touting how it was helping to stop it, was also providing software and services to help Backspace grow its business.

The suit alleges: 

"Salesforce didn't just provide Backpage with a customer-ready version of its data and marketing tools. Salesforce designed and implemented a heavily customized enterprise database tailored for Backpage's operations, both locally and internationally.  With Salesforce's guidance, Backpage was able to use Salesforce's tools to market to new 'users' - that is pimps, johns and traffickers - on three continents."

The suit also charges that Salesforce took on Backpage as a customer in December, 2013, and it included a picture of an alleged invoice from Salesforce to Backpage for 2016 through 2018. 

Read: A laid-off Oracle cloud developer says there's been a power struggle between Oracle's Seattle and Silicon Valley offices - and Seattle won

A Salesforce spokesperson tells Business Insider that company doesn't comment on pending litigation and said, "We are deeply committed to the ethical and humane use of our products and take these allegations seriously."

This isn't the only time Salesforce has faced repercussions over its clientele.

Last year, protests erupted over Salesforce's contracts with the federal Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agency after the public outcry over how the agency was performing family separations at the border. Employees protested and demanded the company cancel the contract with the agency. A non-profit group that provides legal services to immigrants rejected the company's $250,0o0 donation. But the company says its software is not involved in family separations. Still, protests of the company over the issue persist to this day.

Salesforce is a particularly interesting target for such a lawsuit because the company has made itself a champion of human rights causes, everything from women's rights and fair pay, to LGBTQ civil rights to backing a new tax of tech companies in San Francisco that raises money to combat homelessness.

Earlier this year, the company also appointed a Chief Ethics Officer and started a new organization in the company called Office of Ethical and Humane Use to develop policies and strategies to ensure technology is used in humane ways.

Here's the full copy of the lawsuit.