Is the Internet Helping Human

Trafficking?
Human Trafficking is a business like any other businesses in the world. It uses legitimate industries to move their victims

around. Traffickers use banks, stores, hotels, buses, and social media as hunting grounds to recruit victims. Human trafficking is a

$150 billion global industry that requires extreme planning and dependence on other businesses to thrive. There are 25 distinct types

of human trafficking business models occurring in the United States. Bars and nightclubs, construction, escort services, commercial

cleaning services, and peddling and begging to name a few models. Escort services holds the highest number of cases and number of

potential victims.

The information on the exploitation by traffickers as part of business plans came from extensive surveys, focus groups, and

survivors who voluntarily speak their truths in hopes of saving others. Exposing the plans and mapping of the traffickers is limited and

survivors cannot speak out in every city, in every state, on every day alone. So, the idea is to share the methods known by the surveys

of survivors to get in front of the traffickers and stop them in their tracks.
 The fight against human trafficking must begin from the inside out. Child welfare agencies, criminal justice systems, local,

state, and federal government, teachers, and schools must make active commitments and efforts to intersect with former traffickers,

victims, and survivors. To decrease trafficking, researchers need to know more about how trafficking operates. The use of social

media is the fastest method used to network.

Online recruitment has existed as long as there has been general access to online internet. The National Human Trafficking

Hotline has recorded recruitment on mainstream social media including Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram, Plenty of fish, etc. Many

survivors were noted sharing how they were tricked by job ads, Craigslist ads and BackPage.com.
 Works Cited

Anthony, Brittany. “Human Trafficking and Social Media.” Polaris, 5 Aug. 2020, https://polarisproject.org/human-trafficking-and-

social-media/.

Facebook Follies: When Social Media Takes over (Cyber Documentary) | Real Stories.” YouTube, YouTube, 19 June 2021,

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OMz64QbqUYc.

Karim F;Oyewande AA;Abdalla LF;Chaudhry Ehsanullah R;Khan S; “Social Media Use and Its Connection to Mental Health: A

Systematic Review.” Cureus, U.S. National Library of Medicine, https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32685296/.

ProCon.org. “Are Social Networking Sites Good for Our Society?” ProCon.org, 25 June 2020, https://www.procon.org/are-social-

networking-sites-good-for-our-society/.

Scott, Victor. Social Media and Its Terrifyingly Negative Effects on ... Amazon, 5 Sept. 2017, https://www.amazon.com/terrifyingly-

Negative-Effects-Depression-Anxiety-ebook/dp/B075F9WRRP.