Social Media Sites are Increasingly Being Used to Recruit Victims of Sex Trafficking

Social Media Sites are Increasingly Being Used to Recruit Victims of Sex Trafficking

Members of a gang in San Diego, known as BMS, were indicted on January 8, 2014 on charges of racketeering, conspiracy, and of running a sex trafficking ring, which included victims from twenty-three states and forty-six cities. Victims were enticed through communication with members on the streets, as well as through social media websites, including Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, by advertising photographs of extravagant living, including mass amounts of expensive jewelry, alcohol, and high-end parties.

Instead, the gang members trafficked the victims to several states, including Alaska, Hawaii, Florida, and Texas; branded them with tattoo bar codes and the names of their gang member pimps, and forced them to perform sexual services for clients in exchange for food, shelter, and protection. During the raid of the gang, law enforcement discovered sixty trafficked females, eleven of which were children.

The Internet is increasingly being used as an easy way for traffickers to recruit women, children, and men into forced commercial sex. It is time for anti-trafficking organizations and law enforcement officials to work in conjunction with social networking websites to raise awareness of human trafficking recruitment through social media. Additionally, social media sites should begin monitoring their websites much more closely for these types of actions due to the fact that their sites are being directly used for the recruitment of trafficking victims, including children.

Amara Legal Center | Social Media Sites are Increasingly Being Used to Recruit Victims of Sex Trafficking