Facebook etc. are recruiting platforms!

by abolitionist77

As reported by Tyler Durden on the ZeroHedge news site, online recruitment of victims of sex trafficking happened “overwhelmingly” via social media platforms. Durden wrote that,

“A stunning new report ties social media platforms – the most prominent of which is Facebook – to “the majority” of online recruitment in active sex trafficking cases. The data was revealed in the Human Trafficking Institute’s 2020 Federal Human Trafficking Report, according to CBS. Human Trafficking Institute CEO Victor Boutros said on CBSN Wednesday: “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. Facebook overwhelmingly is used by traffickers to recruit victims in active sex trafficking cases.” “

Boutros also said in the interview that, contrary to popular notions, traffickers most often work individually, shrewdly taking advantage of vulnerabilities they already know about to exploit victims they have befriended. These individual traffickers handle small numbers of victims at a time and not large groups in an organized crime syndicate. Read the entire 2020 Federal Human Trafficking Report report online by clicking here.

Here are three simple, common sense takeaways from the report:

  • Maintain personal integrity and practice around the online content you are accessing as a parent.
  • Build and maintain bridges of open communication with your children. Parents are still the number one source of influence in the lives of kids and teens.
  • Know what sites your children are accessing and have the tough discussion with them about guidelines, boundaries, and limits.

What you do matters!