Facebook is the most commonly used online tool for human sex trafficking recruitment, according to a report published by the Human Trafficking Institute, reports Ars Technica.
- In 2020, 41% of all recruitment happened online and 59% of all these victims were found through Facebook.
Image Credit: Human Trafficking Institute
- 30% of all victims of sex trafficking since 2000 were recruited online, per Daily Mail.
Image Credit: Human Trafficking Institute
- "The Internet has become the dominant tool that traffickers use to recruit victims, and they often recruit them on a number of very common social networking websites," Victor Boutros, CEO of the Human Trafficking Institute, told CBS News.
Of note: "65% of child victims recruited on social media were recruited through Facebook," the report says, running contrary to the fact that Facebook is no longer the preferred social media choice for teens.
- "Despite Facebook’s reputation as a less popular platform among teenagers, it was a more common platform for recruiting child victims than adult victims in 2020 active sex trafficking cases," the report says.
- Instagram and Snapchat came in second after Facebook in terms of child trafficking, while WeChat was the most prominent in cases of adult human trafficking.
The response: Facebook spokesperson Jeanne Moran said in a statement, "Sex trafficking and child exploitation are abhorrent, and we don’t allow them on Facebook. We have policies and technology to prevent these types of abuses and take down any content that violates our rules."
- "We also work with safety groups, anti-trafficking organizations, and other technology companies to address this, and we report all apparent instances of child sexual exploitation to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children," she added.
0 Comments