Human Trafficking

Human Trafficking and the Internet

Slavery isn't a relic of history; it is the third most lucrative activity of organized criminal groups worldwide, after the trafficking of arms and drugs. According to the U.S. State Department, the trafficking and enslavement of men, women, and children around the world devastates the lives of possibly as many as four million new victims every year. It also generates billions of dollars each year for those who traffic in human misery.

Unfortunately, the Internet has come to play a critical part in human trafficking. The opportunities that the Internet gives legitimate businesses to expand and reach new audiences serve up even greater benefit to illegitimate businesses in that they can base illegal activities outside the reach of law enforcement and broadcast advertising worldwide with impunity.

Slavery, human and sex trafficking, servitude, and child labor are not comfortable topics. But we cannot eradicate this scourge within our own borders or worldwide without first acknowledging its reality and understanding what it is, where it happens, and the economic and societal factors that give rise to such abuse. We must also remove the blame and stigma from victims, and meaningfully punish those who profit from or add to this human misery.

This blog aims to help you understand human trafficking and the sex trade in particular—how it happens and how the attitudes of our society support it. It focuses primarily on the Internet's role in sex trafficking and how both criminals and companies offering Web services profit from it. At the end of the blog, look for things you can do to be a force for change.

Understanding human trafficking

Human trafficking refers to the recruiting, transporting, and exploitation of women, children, and men through the use of force, deception, or coercion or by paying for the consent of a parent or another who has control over a person.

People are sold into the international sex trade for prostitution, to create pornography (including child pornography), or for sex tourism and escort services. People are also forced into labor for sweatshops, construction sites, and farms, or bought to be organ donors^¹. "The practice may take other forms as well, including the abduction of children and their conscription into government forces or rebel armies, the sale of women and children into domestic servitude, and the use of children as street beggars and camel jockeys."^²

Though it is difficult to measure accurately the full impact of human trafficking, estimated numbers are staggering:

Today, 27 million people are enslaved, more than at the height of the transatlantic slave trade.^³
More than four million people are trafficked annually.^⁴
Two million girls worldwide between the ages of five and 15 are forced into the sex industry every year.^⁵ Underage girls are the bulk of the victims in U.S. commercial sex markets, with the average age of children forced into prostitution just 12 years old.^⁶
30 percent of shelter youth and 70 percent of street youth are victims of commercial sexual exploitation.^⁷
The revenue generated from human trafficking for transnational organized crime rings is estimated to be in the tens of billions of dollars annually. Human trafficking ranks lower in revenue only than drugs and arms smuggling.

Over seven billion dollars a year come from trafficking women and children alone.^⁸
A woman or child sold into prostitution can earn up to $150,000 annually for a pimp, madam, or crime boss.^⁹

How it happens

People are trafficked in virtually every country in the world. Though trafficking often includes transporting victims across borders, millions are also trafficked within their own countries.

Worldwide supply is driven primarily by economic desperation and lack of a sustainable income, oppressive political conditions at home, displacement through war or other crisis, lack of family support, or direct familial coercion.

Victims are sold by desperately poor families who see no other way for the family to survive or forced by spouses or parents who "rent " the victims for income. They are lured by the promise of legitimate work, plucked from the millions of runaway and throwaway youth (those whose parents have abandoned them), or kidnapped.

Human trafficking victims are controlled primarily through brute force or the threat of it. But traffickers also control them through forced confinement, threats of imprisonment in the host country or retaliation against family members, or moving them so frequently that they are never able to establish relationships in their communities.

These methods are exacerbated by lack of money, inability to speak the language of the place where they have been enslaved, drug and alcohol dependencies, fear of imprisonment in the host country, or the knowledge that they cannot go home because their families would reject them for having been prostituted.

Eighty nine percent^¹⁰ of those who are victims of the sex trade in the U.S. are forced into it and want to escape (although there are a few voluntary participants).^¹¹ This is contrary to the media’s most frequent portrayal – think Pretty Woman. We have come to acknowledge the difference between diamonds and "blood" diamonds, though both types sparkle just as brightly. We have yet to acknowledge the reality of the extraordinary high rate of blood pornography and blood prostitution.

Those purchasing sex (johns) or watching pornographic movies cling to the misperception that their victims are "willing." Of course they appear that way; failure to appear happy or willing brings on horrendous abuse. For example a study in the Canadian Medical Association Journal (July 2004) showed that the homicide rate among prostituted women is 17 times higher than their peers.

In the U.S., the foremost appetite for trafficked victims is for sexual exploitation followed closely by domestic servitude. Though huge numbers are trafficked into the country each year, tens of thousands more are "made in the U.S."

The vast majority of sexual trafficking victims are first forced into prostitution as minors, many of whom have already been victims of sexual and physical abuse. (An estimated 80 to 95 percent of child prostitutes have a history of sexual abuse.) At any given time, there are between 100 thousand and 300 hundred thousand children in the United States alone^¹² at risk of commercial sexual exploitation.

Pimps and madams approach and befriend vulnerable youth at malls or clubs, and with increasing frequency, through social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace. Once hooked, victims are groomed into emotional, drug, or alcohol dependencies, or simply beaten, raped, or threatened into compliance.

How our social attitudes support the sex trade

The social acceptance of sexual exploitation of children is directly evidenced by a sobering national statistic:20 percent of our youth are sexually abused before their 18th birthday.^¹³ If any other disease were crippling 20 percent of our youth, the uproar would not end until change had been achieved. In the U.S., we also permit blatantly hostile and degrading attitudes and comments about women to get commercial airtime. And we have come to a point where pop culture has blurred the lines between acceptable behavior and sexual exploitation.

The media teaches young girls and boys alike that prostitution is sexy and glamorous, instead of learning its devastating, brutal realities. Look no further than MTV and "family friendly" sites like AOL, Yahoo, and MSN to watch videos like Candy Shop by 50 Cent which praises the purchase of prostituted women (and worse).

We routinely see highly sexualized ad campaigns. We have for years been bombarded with explicit campaigns used to sell jeans, t-shirts, cars, aftershave – just about every commodity under the sun. A disturbing trend is the sale of products designed to sexualize children—for example, Abercrombie and Fitch selling thong underwear with sexually provocative phrases to seven year olds. Tesco, a major retail chain in the UK, advertised pole dancing kits for little girls as toys: "Unleash the sex kitten inside...simply extend the Peekaboo pole inside the tube, slip on the sexy tunes and away you go! Soon you'll be flaunting it to the world and earning a fortune in Peekaboo Dance Dollars."

We glamorize the role of pimps. We've watched as positive meanings have been attached to pimps – for example, to "pimp your ride" or "pimp your Web site" now means to make it cool. Major, otherwise reputable, companies like Microsoft and MySpace are using this phrase in a misguided attempt to appeal to young people.

White Wolf Publishing celebrates being a pimp with a card game, Pimp: The Backhanding!, so that anyone with a few bucks can "experience the dizzying highs and soul-bending lows of exploiting women, pushing drugs and dodging undercover cops." (In a case of clear-cut hypocrisy, the company has a disclaimer that it “does not condone or support the illegal sex trade industry.”)

We've institutionalized the purchase of humans in our rites of passage. Many bachelor parties include a prostituted woman or stripper. (What better way to celebrate the union of marriage to one woman than through the sexual exploitation of another?) And many fathers still "celebrate" their son's coming of age by taking them to a prostitute, thus ensuring that their first sexual encounter is an exploitive one.

We don't recognize prostitution and other sexual exploitation as the abuse it is. Sadly a considerable amount of the commentary surrounding the prostitution charges against former New York governor, Elliot Spitzer, failed to even recognize that exploitation occurred. When "boys will be boys" is an accepted attitude, the silent consequence is that girls can be exploited.

This extends to our prostitution laws. In every city, in even the smallest towns, and especially around every military base, it is common knowledge where to buy the services of prostituted women and children. Yet if law enforcement targets such a locale, the abusers -- both pimps and johns -- are typically let go as if they were the victims. The true victims, the prostituted women and children, are arrested, jailed, and reviled for the crimes committed against them.

Even our Supreme Court maintains a shameful record on child pornography, offering in its ruling the most damning evidence of social tolerance of the exploitation of minors. It has ruled that digitally generated child pornography is acceptable and legal because "the Government has shown no more than a remote connection between speech that might encourage thoughts or impulses and any resulting child abuse." (Read more about this.)

Follow the money: the Internet's role in sex trafficking

The Internet plays a lucrative and critical role in all types of human trafficking. Here, however, I will focus primarily on the Internet's role in facilitating a multi-billion dollar slice of the overall business—sex trafficking and forced pornography (including child pornography) in the U.S. market

Two groups profit from sex trafficking online: criminals and companies that offer services on the Internet—e-mail, social networking, blogs, and so on.

Criminals profit from the sex trade

In the past, advertising for trafficked humans or for pornography was difficult for criminals. There were few places that would allow ads for it and the transport of "goods" was fraught with risk. The tremendous reach of the Internet has vastly simplified and reduced these costs.

Where once the clientele was limited to a network of known individuals, now traffickers can reach almost a billion and a half^¹ potential "customers" on the World Wide Web. Criminals can broadcast advertising on Web sites or as spam through email, text or instant messages, and the like.

The Internet makes it possible for criminals to base illegal activities in countries whose lack of laws, level of corruption, or inability to investigate and prosecute any crime, let alone Internet crimes, allow them to operate without risk of punishment.

Unlike the physical world where law enforcement can take action against an establishment, the Internet enables virtual storefronts that can crop up and disappear with the click of a mouse, or be hidden in such a way that they are difficult, if not impossible, to trace.

The Internet makes it easier for customers, too, to purchase or rent humans. To transmit or purchase exploitive images, no one has to be physically present or even identifiable for the exchange to occur. The transaction may be the purchase of existing images or it may be interactive where "buyers" can select victims from an online catalog and watch live video of the exploitation. This anonymity significantly lowers the risk of being caught or punished, and a considerable body of evidence indicates that it may increase the number of people willing to act on their cruelest impulses.^²

Some companies that provide Web services profit from the sex trade

Internet companies offering "free" services make money primarily through payments by advertisers. Advertisers underwrite your online activities in exchange for access to you. The service provider's goal is to earn advertising revenue from every online action—every time you click to a new page, upload or view content, buy something. The more people who visit a site and the longer they stay, the more advertising they will see and the more money the service provider will make.

The pornography spam and the easy Internet access to extremely explicit images, videos, and live-cams is no accident. It is very deliberate advertising and soliciting by pornography suppliers to expand their current base of customers.

Because revenue and Web site traffic are so intertwined, legitimate service providers attempt a balancing act. They want to allow as much traffic through their services as possible to get the greatest revenue while avoiding negative publicity or legal prosecution. There is an understandable reluctance to block any content or turn down any advertising even if it violates the site's own code of conduct or directly conflicts with the desired corporate image. (See some examples below.)

The financial temptation to turn a blind eye to a company's own standards is particularly strong when interest in violating content is high. Highly sexualized content, ranging from the blatantly sexual to the basest and most brutal sex trafficking, drives an enormous percentage of online traffic.

Internet Pornography Statistics
Daily pornographic search engine requests	68 million (25 percent of total search engine requests)
Internet users worldwide who view pornography	42.7 percent with 72 million visitors each month
Monthly downloads of pornography (peer-to-peer)	1.5 billion (35 percent of all downloads)
Number of users viewing pornography every second	28,258
Web sites offering illegal child pornography	100,000
Internet pornography sales	$4.9 billion annually
Revenue from online pornography – over $97 billion annually	Greater than the gross national product of Chile, and equal to the combined annual revenues of Microsoft and Google.

These numbers do not include those who view pornography on mobile devices like cell phones and PDAs. Nor do they include the huge volumes of pornography, child pornography, solicitation for prostitution, and the like, posted by consumers and businesses and hosted on sites like MSN Spaces, MySpace, Facebook, Flickr, Craigslist, and Stickam.

Read more about how online services make money in Online Business 101.

Enforcing a company’s standards isn’t hard. Companies have the tools to monitor all the content allowed onto their site if they choose to—without busting the bank or ruining the online experience. Companies have the technology to filter every image piece of text, photo, and video before it is ever uploaded without significantly impacting performance.

Blocking sexually demeaning content from appearing on sites is also not a freedom of speech issue. These portals and services are owned by companies with clear terms of use that specifically outline their right to accept—or deny—any content at any time.

People often blame the Web for the trash passing as content on many Web sites. But the Web doesn't create or distribute content – people create it, and companies host it. What stops companies from adhering to their professed standards? The loss of revenue if they clamp down on advertising and member content.

Of course there are many responsible companies providing Internet services that act thoughtfully and responsibly. Some manage to maintain this in every aspect of their business; others struggle to find a balance.

In this blog you've already seen a few examples where a company's stated values appear to be at odds with their revenue stream: the ads on AOL for sex videos even when AOL's "family-friendly" filter is turned on, White Wolf Publishing's choice of content. There are more shown below. But Consider examples of two companies with brand integrity: Disney and Playboy. Each has clearly stated brand values (whether you approve of them or not) and both have a track record of staying true to their brands and brand promise. Neither claims one set of brand values, but acts in a radically different way.

A sample of shame

Sadly, it is all to easy to find examples of multi-million dollar companies that are household names (even ranked in the Fortune 500) who promote and profit from sexualizing youth and denigrating women.

MySpace

MySpace is a clear example of a company that accepts ad revenue and gives prominent placement to ads from such companies as Onlinebootycall.com. “Find a Booty Call” was the first ad shown on the page (captured May 2008). This in spite of the fact that it targets young people and has a large user base of minors,

MySpace sponsors OnlineBootyCall counter to its own Terms of Use (see the section. "Content/Activity Prohibited”). And lest there be any confusion as to what service is being offered through onlinebootycall.com, it’s a meat market.

In addition to this advertising, MySpace allows users to freely post content that flagrantly violates its Terms of Use In March 2008, I searched MySpace for the name "daddy." It brought back a disturbing number of sickening pages including the one below.

This guy called himself "daddyforlittle" and blatantly states his interests as sex, porn, pleasing women, but he reverts to his little girl fixation by saying "…there is nothing sexier than a girl …”. Notice his background image is of a little anime girl wearing flimsy tap pants and lying across a bed.

This pedophile is blatantly soliciting and MySpace has not only allowed him access but allowed him to create this site as a lure.

Espin-the-bottle

This site, owned by Hearst Publishing, ranked for a time at the top of my list of irresponsible Web sites targeting teens. This highly sexualized site is for "cool teens and college students" although people as old as those in their late fifties use this site. Yet look at what espin is promoting to minors and young adults. Users can:

Sign up for weekly e-mail messages ("Hi chuck!") listing new users who match the profile interests of the searcher. They can search for minors by photo, ethnic background, and geographic area (within as little as a 25-mile radius). Notice the ages of some of the girls offered up—Cecil (16), ineedaskat (13), and so on.

Get automatic "Tips" from espin if they don’t give a lot of information on their profiles. The result is pressure to reveal more personal information which increases the chance that they can be identified and found.

Be bombarded with highly sexualized quizzes that make any responsible answer seem uncool. Espin then posts the answers for others to see.

See advertising from companies that promote ways to help kids hide their Internet use from parents – “Don't let others know where you've been. Clear your browser history in just one click.”

See ads that promote links to live sex cam sites.

See promotions for third-party services like the "Love & Sex" daily text messages. For just $4.99 per month your daughter can get daily tips like: "Want more action? Tell your guy you got a spray tan and he can't touch you for 3 days or it'll smear. He'll jump you ASAP. Could guys BE any easier?"

Note Over a year ago on Seattle’s King 5 TV station, I highlighted the problems on Espin. The company responded with a token link to generic safety tips on the top of the Home page and called it done. These "safety" tips have since been removed.

Craigslist

Craigslist is at least very forthright about its position as a broker for sex. On the landing page for sexual encounters, there's a specific warning to those who may not want to view those pages. Craigslist also provides safe sex tips.

But human traffickers advertise on Craiglist in cities across the country. Prostitution does a lively trade here – pimps advertise their "girls," men advertise for prostituted women, and mothers sell their children.

LOOKBOTHWAYS Wall of Shame See more examples of companies who profit from sexualizing minors, demeaning women, and sex trafficking—MissBimbo.com, Stickam, Second Life, and others.

Take action

When the Internet was originally created, there was little need for security. As we developed new uses like ecommerce, more sophisticated communication, and online entertainment, functionality outpaced oversight.

Trafficking at home and abroad will continue to flourish and grow until we acknowledge the devastating impact of human trafficking within the U.S. and abroad, protect victims, and punish perpetrators. And until we establish an infrastructure like the one we use to protect ourselves in the "real" world—laws and law enforcement, industry regulation, safety standards, and so on—we will have an environment where criminals of every kind, including human traffickers, can thrive.

There is, however, a great deal you can do to be a force for change:

Change begins with awareness. Share what you've learned with others.
Reject the labels applied to victims and abusers.

The victims of human trafficking aren't prostitutes, they are being prostituted. These are prostituted women and prostituted children. They aren't domestic help; they are in domestic servitude, and so on. Until we change our labeling, we will fail to acknowledge the horrific abuse those who are trafficked suffer.
Pimps aren't cool and pimping isn't something you want to do to your car or Web site. Pimps are serial rapists, slave holders, domestic violence thugs, and often drug dealers and killers.
Denigration of females with anti-women or girl phrases, attitudes and actions including gender stereotyping simply cannot be tolerated in words, music, video, photos, products, or actions. These aren't creative expressions; they are violent assaults on the rights and dignity of women and girls.

Hold companies responsible. Every major Internet services company has content guidelines or codes of conduct. Demand that companies enforce them. Every major company has a corporate image and value statement—demand that they adhere to them. These aren't calls for morality; these are calls for honesty.

Support Internet companies that do not advertise (or profit from) sexualization, denigration, or tacit trade on their sites.
When companies fail to respect human rights and gender dignity on their sites or advertise on sites that fail to respect these, let them know that you find their behavior unacceptable and stop using their services.

Demand decency from the men you know. Real men don't abuse women. And they don't pretend that paying a prostitute compensates for the abuse. We have to stop the “boys will be boys” mentality.
Keep your eyes open for human trafficking.

If you think you have come in contact with a victim of human trafficking, call the Trafficking Information and Referral Hotline at 888-373-7888.
If you believe there is a business in your area that is prostituting women notify the police and call the Trafficking Information and Referral Hotline.
If the victim is a child or you suspect abuse of any child, call the National Center for Missincg Child Hotline at 800.843.5678.

Get involved. Check out some of the excellent organizations that champion the rights of trafficking victims to find out how you can help:

ECPAT-U.S.A is dedicated to ending child prostitution and pornography, and the trafficking of children for sexual purposes.
Shared hope aims to eradicate sexual slavery.
National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC)
Coalition Against Trafficking in Women

More information about human trafficking

Check out these powerful posters by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC). (Note: it is safe to download these posters from this site.)

What is the Prostitution of Children? This article by the NCMEC defines child prostitution and outlines the risks children face. It explores the factors that drive adults to force children into prostitution, the trends in child prostitution, and the long term effects it has on children.
Teen Sex Slave Trade Hits Home This ABC News piece outlines the scope and realities of the sexual slavery of children on the streets of America.
Trafficking In Minors The United Nations report on the global trafficking of children.

1 Technology Is a Double-Edged Sword: Illegal Human Trafficking in the Information Age, Computer Crime Research Center

2 Trafficking in Persons Report, U.S. Department of State

3 Slavery Today: A Clear and Present Danger, Truthout.org

4 Trafficking in Persons Report, U.S. Department of State

5 The Coalition Against Trafficking in Women

6 Domestic Minor Sex Trafficking in the United States, Shared Hope International

7 Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children in the U.S., Canada, and Mexico, University of Pennsylvania, School of Social Work

8 Murdock University Electronic Journal of Law

9 UN Office of Drug Control and Crime Prevention (ODCCP)

10 Data provided by Linda Smith Founder of Shared Hope International from research funded by the U.S. Department of Justice.

11 See COYOTE (Call Off Your Old Tired Ethics)

12 Domestic Minor Sex Trafficking in the United States, Shared Hope International