Human Traffickers And Criminal Networks

Human Traffickers and Criminal Networks
Are Taking Advantage of Technology to Reach Victims Worldwide

Last week, I heard the true story from a survivor victim of human trafficking. Her name is Sara. She is the mother of the two, one a girl age 14, the other a boy age 10. All three were tricked into being captured and then forced into slavery right here in the United States.

Sara is a blue-eyed blonde haired (late thirties) educated woman and mother from a middle class suburb in the United Kingdom (England). She is a hard worker and well educated as a writer. She only wanted her children visit America to expand their view of the world. Therefore she planned a surprise vacation in the summer of 2007 for both herself and her children, To save money, Sara reached out through the internet to find a cheaper way to travel for the three them.
In doing so, she corresponded back and forth for months with a man that she thought was a honest operator. In addition,in doing so, over those many months, she fell into completely trusting this man and his promised correspondence. Unfortunately, upon arriving in the United States, this contact, who she had reserved and hired out to assist her in her travels/etc while in the USA essentially tricked Sara (and her children) into changing some details in their plans when they arrived. These changed details, which insisted at the last minute that Sara and her children go to the Contacts Home to their Hotel accommodation, turned out to be a huge mistake. And it was her unvetted, and unwarranted trust in this Man and his Travel help that got Sara in this trouble. Again, Sara was an educated European woman who believed she was coming to America for a great vacation with her children, but when she arrived, she was picked up by this man, and taken to his home, where she was beaten and detained, and all her ID/Passports were taken away, she realized that she had been tricked into slavery, and was to be another casualty of Human Trafficking.
Over more than two months, she was repeatedly beaten and raped, and told that if she tried to escape that she would never see her children again. This man even threatened to kill her if she tried anything at all that might share her story. Psychologically, this was overwhelming, as she was now in captivity, and a prisoner of a highly sophisticated organization of sex traffickers that kept them and other women confined to homes and warehouses as both labor and sex slaves. Sometimes these slave owners/slave rings would simply keep a slave for their own use, and other times they would sell the captured slaves to other trafficers to be used for free labor or Prostetution. Most of these bogus Agencies that prey on unsuspecting victims, are organized as a mafia like group focused on prostitution operations masterminded by morally bankrupt people.
One of the red flags to look for are promises and savings that are too good to be true, especially dangerous when one uses an outside unknown independent Travel provider found online versus a well known Travel Company/Agency. Having noted this, when someone does not use a well known and established and trusted company, there are signs that should be looked out for to protect yourself, and if not, unfortunately one risks becoming a casualty of human trafficking or worse.

As we’re becoming more aware of this horrible crime, we are finding that labor and sex trafficking isn’t only a problem that affects underdeveloped parts of the world. Human labor & sex slavery trafficking happens with increasing frequency even right here in America...
Each year, more than 17,000 people (mostly women and children) are trafficked around the United States. States such as California, Florida, New York, Nevada and Ohio are particularly vulnerable to human trafficking because of factors such as: proximity to international borders, number of ports and airports, significant immigrant population, and large economies that include many industries that attract and require large amounts of manual labor.

Clearly, the global landscape of digital technologies; mobile phones, social networking sites, and the Internet have provided significant benefits to society. Unfortunately all this new technology has also created vast new opportunities for exploitation of others. Increasingly, the business of human trafficking is taking place online and over mobile phones. Thanksfully the same technologies that are being used for trafficking can become a powerful tool to combat trafficking.

Technology played a big role for the criminals that took advantage of Sara and her children.
While the sex trafficking of minors is found in all forms of modern day media, no other communication technology in history, using the Internet with Smartphones, has been adopted so rapidly around the entire globe. Using the internet, traffickers are able to recruit, advertise, organize, and communicate primarily - or even exclusively - via mobile smartphone, effectively streamlining activities and expanding the ease of criminal networks. In short, human traffickers and criminal networks are taking advantage of technology to reach victims worldwide of every race and culture. No one is immune of completely safe of this insidious crime.

Sara today, years after escaping the torture of her own time trafficked and enslaved, says she is determined to get her voice out to others and to the media, hoping to save others from the hell that she endured. She notes,“We are turning the tables on the traffickers. Just as they are now using technology and the Internet to exploit their victims, we are going to harness technology to stop them.”

Sara today is an activist against sex trafficking, still in the USA 8 years after coming only for what was to be a short summer vacation, she has gone on to speak out for women who have suffered the same fate. She speaks out about her healing and deliverance from this frightening world human trafficking, I hope that her small voice will help prevent others from this horror.