The Human Trafficking Institute (HTI, for its acronym in English) held on June 3 a webinar to provide previews of your annual report on this crime. The organization reported that Facebook was the social network most used in 2020 to recruit minors in cases of child sex trafficking.
“This year we started tracking the social media platforms where victims are recruited. In total, 41% of victims in sex trafficking cases were recruited online ”,
said Alyssa Currier Wheeler, the associate legal counsel for HTI.
In 65% of the cases of child sex trafficking documented in 2020, the minors were recruited through Facebook. In 14% of the cases, the traffickers used Instagram and in 8% of the cases, Snapchat.
In adult sex trafficking, 43% of them were recruited on We Chat; 36%, on Facebook and 7%, on Instagram.
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In its 2020 report, the HTI introduced new categories of analysis. The report indicates which third parties have linked victims to sex traffickers:
- 24% were recruited by their spouse or intimate partner.
- 23% for a mutual friend.
- 14% by a friend or classmate.
- 14% by a drug dealer.
- 9% by a parent or guardian (representative, guardian).
- 6% by a religious leader.
- 5% by other relatives.
- 3% by a land owner.
More than half of the sex trafficking victims in 2020 were minors. In total, 55% of the sex trafficking cases that year were in minors and 45% were in adults.
Likewise, 89% of minors who are victims of sex trafficking they were adolescents between 14 and 17 years old, while 12% were children between 0 to 13 years old.
The HTI registered 165 cases of human trafficking in 2020, 95% of them were sex trafficking. The full report is expected to be published in the coming days of June.
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