Community engagement and education play a role in achieving the Center’s vision of seeking justice for the world’s downtrodden. In advancement of such objectives, I recently had the opportunity to represent the Center at an event hosted by the Legal Studies Academy at First Colonial High School. The event was on Human Trafficking and Social Media, and was facilitated by a student in the Academy whose senior thesis was on that topic.
I had the honor of joining Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares, and two members of the Safe House Project team, one of whom is a survivor of human trafficking. Collectively, we shared about human trafficking laws and the realities of trafficking here in Virginia and nationwide, particularly as it pertains to high schoolers and users of social media.
We discussed common misconceptions about human trafficking. First, many Americans believe that this is only a foreign problem. While trafficking certainly exists in other countries, it happens here in the US. In 2021, The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children’s CyberTipline received 29.3 million reports of suspected child sexual exploitation, an increase of 35% from 2020. In 2021, 16,710 trafficking victims in the United States were identified by the Human Trafficking Hotline. However, by some estimates, fewer than 1% of victims are ever identified. Thus, the actual case numbers are likely significantly higher.
Another misconception is that the trafficking victim must be physically moved or transported. According to the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000, or TVPA, human trafficking is a crime involving the exploitation of someone for the purpose of compelled labor or a commercial sex act through the use of force, fraud, or coercion. There is no requirement that a person is physically moved. Human trafficking sometimes involves crossing a border but does not require it, and is a distinct crime from that of migrant smuggling. Migrant smugglers engage in the crime of bringing people across international borders through deliberate evasion of immigration laws. While these are distinct crimes, individuals who are smuggled may become vulnerable to being trafficked.
We discussed the ways that social media has transformed human trafficking. Social media has been used by traffickers to recruit and groom victims and to escalate and advance their trafficking operations. Technology changes quickly, but any ”new” app that a child or teen is using is almost certainly being used by predators as well. A 2018 report showed that while 58 percent of victims eventually meet their traffickers face to face, 42 percent who initially met their trafficker online never met their trafficker in person and were still trafficked. 83% of active 2020 sex trafficking cases prosecuted in the United States involved online solicitation, which is overwhelmingly the most common tactic traffickers use to solicit sex buyers. The trends regarding the use of social media by traffickers are alarming, but outreach and education can be an essential step in equipping families and helping save people of all ages from becoming victims of modern-day slavery.
Engaging with high schoolers and their families is not part of my typical week, but I was grateful for the opportunity to connect our research and work to the lives of our local community. Justice globally begins with justice here at home.
Margaret “Meg” Kelsey, Esq.
Assistant Director of the Center for Global Justice
Interested in more information and in being equipped to combat trafficking within your community or industry? Go to https://www.iamonwatch.org/training for free online training. OnWatch provides survivor-led training designed to empower you to spot, report, and prevent sex trafficking where you live, work, and play.
Written by:
Margaret “Meg” Kelsey, Esq.
Assistant Director of the Center for Global Justice