Human Trafficking: Internet And Other Digital Technologies
Introduction
Karla Jacinto was 12, living in a dysfunctional home in Mexico City, when she met and became friends with a polite, handsome man who was 10 years her senior. A frequent visitor to her neighborhood, he often gave her gifts and money and, as a result, she grew fond of him. Therefore, when the man proposed that they move together to another part of the country, Karla did not resist. Instead, she saw an opportunity to escape the misery of her home. Three months later, she was working as a prostitute in Guadalajara, against her will; her ‘friend’ nowhere to be found. Karla estimates that she was forced to engage in sexual activity approximately 43, 200 times over a four year period. That, she says, will haunt her forever. Worse still, all the proceeds of her pain went to her masters. While Karla’s story is heart-wrenching, she is lucky to have lived to tell her story. Unfortunately, unlike her, millions of other victims of human trafficking remain in captivity and some will never taste freedom again.
The Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act, 2000, defines human trafficking as the act of recruiting, obtaining, harboring, providing or transporting an individual for services or labor through the utilization of fraud, coercion or force for purposes of peonage, slavery, debt bondage or involuntary servitude. Other definitions include organ harvesting, child soldiering, domestic servitude, forced criminal activity or any form of forced labor in any industry. According to Okech, Choi, Elkins, & Burns (2017), there are approximately 24. 9 million victims of human trafficking across the globe. In contrast, the International Labor Organization, (2017) puts the figure at approximately 40. 3 million. That is more than the entire population of California. The victims go through untold pain, suffering and loss of dignity at the hands of the traffickers. In light of that information, various institutions and organizations have put in intense efforts to combat human trafficking, free the victims and bring the culprits to justice. At the forefront of the efforts are law enforcement institutions, academics, civil activists, and media and policy makers. According to humantraffickingsearch. org (2018), the number of human trafficking cases reported in 2017 rose by 13%, compared to the 2016 figures. Heatwatch. org (2018) attributes the increasing numbers to several factors, including the increased use of the internet and other technologies in the trafficking process. On the other hand, law enforcement institutions and other organizations use the same technologies to fight the vice. This paper explores the role of the internet and digital technologies in human trafficking as well as its use by institutions fighting the crime. It hypothesizes that the internet and digital technologies have been more of enablers of human trafficking than they help in combating the vice.
Internet and Digital Technologies in Promoting Human Trafficking
To begin with, social networking sites enable traffickers to reach potential victims all over the world. Initially, traffickers had to physically travel to different places in search of victims. However, that has all changed with the introduction of numerous social networking sites that allow the culprits to reach victims, thousands of miles away. Sites such as Facebook allow users to open multiple accounts under pseudonyms. The pseudo-accounts are then used to lure unsuspecting people around the world into the trade. The use of chat rooms enables communication between culprit and victims in real time and the messages are not stored or archived. What is more, chat rooms do not maintain log files. That makes it difficult for law enforcement and other agencies to establish the identity of the culprits. Digital technologies have led to the creation of mobile phone applications that culprits can use while remaining anonymous. Some, such as WhatsApp, have end-to-end encryption and, thus, cannot be intercepted. Therefore, even if the police and other agencies suspect that a certain person is being targeted, they have no way of getting the information beforehand. While such security features on applications are important for user privacy, they erect a major obstacle on government efforts to forestall the activities of human traffickers. Mobile phone applications enable traffickers to communicate with their customers over the internet.
Moreover, Wi-Fi enabled smart phones make it possible for the trafficker to communicate with others and buyers without cell phone service. The applications are difficult to trace, thus, giving the traffickers a platform to communicate with potential buyers, discuss payments and set meeting place and time. The anonymity of their communications ensures that they can safely communicate and finalize negotiations without attracting the attention of law enforcement and other anti-trafficking agencies and organizations. Dixon Jr (2012) argues that the internet has improved the profitability of the human trafficking trade. The traffickers force the victims to perform sex acts and sell the videos and pictures through the internet. Therefore, the internet enables the criminals to sell the pornographic content to diverse audiences around the world. The extensive reach of their products increases their proceeds significantly. Without the internet, the traffickers would be forced to sell their content to a geographically limited audience. The increased profitability creates the incentive to source more victims in order to increase the variety of pornographic material created. Digital technologies and the internet have further increased traffickers’ profits by reducing the costs they used to incur scouting for potential victims. The traditional model involved a lot of travelling, which was costly. Communicating through the internet and other digital technologies makes it possible to lure many victims without incurring high transportation costs.
In addition, the convenience of technology reduces the size of the networks; they can use fewer personnel to lure, control and sell victims. Accordingly, the members of trafficking gangs get more money from their activities. That serves as an incentive to continue the trade. Reduced sizes of trafficking syndicates make them more difficult to capture. The advent of the internet has led to the rise of online payment systems that the culprits can use to send and receive money. Even the largest online payment platforms are poorly regulated. For instance, one can make huge payments through PayPal without explaining the source or destination of the funds. Generally, no online platform asks for supporting documents to ascertain the source of the money and the relationship between the sender and the recipient. Consequently, the traffickers can easily move money without having to explain its source. Whenever flagged, they can abandon the account, create another one and continue transacting. The rise of cryptocurrencies, such as “bitcoin”, has further exacerbated the problem by giving traffickers alternative payment methods that are difficult to trace. Although cryptocurrencies have no ties to international banks or governments, some of them, particularly bitcoin, have gained traction and acceptance in many parts of the world. In 2014, a bitcoin brothel, the first of its kind, was opened in the UK in order to protect client anonymity. While they remain unstable in value and their continued use is questionable, they can immensely help traffickers avoid being traced. The unaccountable nature of online payment creates an enabling environment for the human trafficking trade to flourish. Human trafficking, at times, involves the sale of human organs. The internet and digital technologies have made it easier to advertise human organs to a global clientele. Though it is rare, anti-trafficking agencies have noted instances when organs were advertised online. Once a buyer is found, they force the victims to donate organs or kill the victims when the organs are needed for ritualistic purposes. However, the organs are advertised using code words or symbols that can only be decoded by customers who deal in the organs. The traffickers use coded language to comprehensively explain the descriptions of the organs they wish to sell.
It is worth noting that advertising human organs was a much more daunting task before the advent of the internet. Human traffickers usually change the identity of their victims in order to mislead agencies investigating trafficking cases. That includes giving the victims new identities and creating documents to support the new identities. Digital technologies have made it easier to create counterfeit documentation to disguise the identity of victims. The traffickers can now create a wide range of documents with striking similarity to the actual documents given by governments. For example, they create passports and birth certificates for their victims and force them to take on their new identities. The documents make it easier to move the victims around and sell them on. They even use the new identities to seek medication when needed. The internet augments the ephemeral nature of human trafficking cases, which makes it harder for law enforcement agencies to locate traffickers and victims, identify important evidence and witnesses and share important intelligence and information. The fluid nature of web-based human trafficking is a major obstacle to policing efforts against the vice. They can use different modes of communication amongst themselves, making it difficult to collect any meaningful information that can lead to the rescue of victims or arrest of the criminals. The fact that it is possible to hide one’s device’s internet protocol (IP) address when communicating over the internet diminishes the chances of catching up with culprits. While many social networking sites ask for IP address identification and seeks permission to retrieve one’s location, it is possible to proceed to use the sites without revealing any of the two. For that reason, if careful, trafficking culprits can easily conduct their activities over social media without the fear of getting caught. Digital technologies and the internet are also used as tools of controlling and retaining victims of human trafficking.
The criminals use technological blackmail to ensure that victims do not try to escape. For instance, some threaten to send nude photos and videos to victims’ families and friends. Others threaten to harm their (victims’) family members and provide digital images or videos as proof that they can reach and harm them. The traffickers also use location apps and GPS capabilities to monitor the movements of victims. It, thus, becomes harder to escape or seek help when their movements and locations are closely monitored. According to marketplace. org, human traffickers use pet trackers to track their victims. A woman reported to having a tracking device on her at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, MA. It was later found to be a Radio-frequency Identification (RFID) chip that is used to tag pets; mostly dogs and cats. The device was inserted under the woman’s skin to enable the trafficker to monitor her movements at all times. The incident illustrates how technology has facilitated the control of victims by the traffickers. Through the use of digital technologies, victims find it harder to escape from the criminals.
Internet and Digital Technologies in Fighting Human Trafficking
While it is clear that the internet and other digital technologies aid human traffickers, the same technologies are also critical to the fight against the vice. First, using artificial intelligence, software can trawl sex advertisements online. Some of the people being advertised are victims of human trafficking. The software can determine advertisements that follow a similar writing style, which could be indicative of human trafficking. What’s more, since most adverts have photos, the software can use facial recognition to compare the photos to those of missing persons. Comparing the photos with social media images can also help establish if the persons have been trafficked. The use of block chain technology can also help trace the identity of the people making bitcoin payments. Although bitcoin is considered a safe mode of payment by human traffickers, block chain makes it possible to recognize payments that are made by a single person. Therefore, anti-trafficking agencies can use the technology to spot when one bitcoin user makes payments for different adverts on websites that advertise sex services. That would indicate organized prostitution, a hallmark of human trafficking. Although law enforcement agencies have to conduct additional investigations to get further information, block chain technology gives them a solid starting point. Nonetheless, if careful, human traffickers can avoid creating payment patterns that would arouse suspicion. For instance, it would be difficult to deduce a pattern when one person uses multiple identities and multiple devices when making bitcoin payments. Such a strategy would successfully thwart efforts to catch them using block chain technology. Since the criminals are conversant with the technology, they are likely to employ tactics that diminish digital traces that can be linked back to them.
Organizations have also been able to harness technology to enable people report incidents of suspected human trafficking. For instance, the National Human Trafficking Resource Center (NHTRC) has a hotline that members of the public can access by email. The Center also provides an online reporting form that people can quickly fill to pass on trafficking information they might be privy to. Several organizations have made it easier to pass on tips through the internet. Anti-trafficking agencies have also created smart phone applications to combat the crime. BAN is developed in the form of an online game that teaches users about the ills of human trafficking.
Another application, Slavery Footprint, seeks to educate people on the role they play towards promoting human trafficking. Users answer a number of questions and the system gives a score indicating the level to which they support the trade, through their purchases. That enlightens the population on adopting purchasing practices that discourage human trafficking. The integration of the phone, camera and internet capabilities is critical towards combating human trafficking. The integrated technologies allow people to discreetly take and share photos when they suspect a case of human trafficking. The information helps law enforcement get important leads that can help rescue victims and arrest the perpetrators. It also helps people with additional information gain confidence to share it with law enforcement. The internet is used to track people who solicit sex online from minors. The UNODC asserts that most women trafficked for sex purposes are underage (2018). Therefore, it is important to monitor and arrest the people who increase the demand for minors. However, the anti-trafficking agencies ought to have information on the code words used to describe minors in online advertisements. Suzy (2016) proposes the use of online shaming over social media platforms. In her view, that would discourage people from seeking the services of minors. However, such a strategy would lead to multiple defamation cases. Twitter, one of the most popular social networking sites, has a search function that enables anti-trafficking agencies to identify all tweets that use a particular word.
Authorities look out for words that traffickers might be using to advertise sex workers, human organs or laborers on the platform. They use the key words to search for all adverts that mention the term. The number of adverts using the key words is then narrowed down by removing posts using proper nouns and modifiers alongside the search word. The agencies analyze the remaining posts at length and trace them to specific individuals. In many cases, the posts contain links to adult content websites, which upon scrutiny reveal specific characteristics about the age, physical features, and country of origin and nationalities of the people in the adverts. The invention of photo recognition has improved the fight against human trafficking. Through the digital technology, anti-trafficking agencies can recognize photos of victims posted online, even if they have been altered. Initially, traffickers would subtly alter photos of their victims to hide their identities and make them unrecognizable. Microsoft is the inventor of the new technology, with its PhotoDNA technology being used by several agencies around the world to reveal the original face of any image. Moreover, the technology helps identify inappropriate online images from billions of photos. Crowdsourcing technologies constitute another way in which anti-trafficking authorities have harnessed to rescue victims. The technologies enable members of the public to provide information that can be used to provide evidence of human trafficking and arrest those found culpable. They mostly are in form of Short Text Messaging (SMS) tools to rope in even those who have no internet access. Only approved personnel access the information provided and search for concrete leads in the numerous tips. Conclusion It is clear that both human traffickers and anti-trafficking agents both use the internet and other digital technologies to further their contrasting courses. The traffickers use the technologies to ensnare victims, communicate amongst themselves and with their customers, send and receive payments and to control their victims. In addition, the technologies increase the trade’s profitability and make it difficult to track, identify and arrest the criminals.
On the other hand, anti-trafficking agencies use photo recognition and face recognition technologies to compare online images to establish whether they are of known human trafficking victims. Block chain technologies and social networking are also important towards rescuing victims. Nonetheless, the analysis proves that the traffickers use the technologies in a proactive way to advance their trade. In sharp contrast, anti-trafficking agencies are reactive in their use of the technologies towards the execution of their duty and course. However, their different use of technology should not be construed as indictment of anti-trafficking agents. Instead, it should spur academics and researchers to evaluate why it has been easier for the criminals to use them, than for anti-traffickers to prevent the commission of human trafficking.
