HUMAN TRAFFICKING ON SOCIAL MEDIA

Head of European policing agency Europol warns of trafficking gangs' growing use of technology including social media

Social media sites including Facebook are being used by criminals to “enslave” vulnerable women in prostitution and illegal working, the head of the European policing agency has warned.

Rob Wainwright, the director of Europol, said women forced to work in the sex industry against their will are also being monitored by organised crime groups using live webcams over the internet.

"The role of social media is very important here as a new tool for recruiting victims,” said Mr Wainwright.

“Facebook is effectively being used in many cases as the means to attract and then enslave vulnerable young women, in particular.”

Once women have been lured into prostitution with false promises of legitimate work in cleaning, child care or secretarial work, technology allows criminal gangs to monitor them on an “industrial scale”, said Mr Wainwright in a speech to the Centre for Social Justice think-tank in central London.

"Instead of paying them a visit every day they can use the webchat services but also webcam cameras to confirm that they are where they should be, they are in that brothel waiting for the next customer,” he said.

"In the past, the pimps and traffickers had to do that by physically visiting them.

“Now they can just do it at the click of a button and therefore control 50 victims much more easily and readily in virtual form.

"What that allows therefore is a sort of industrialisation of the problem.

"Single traffickers and pimps can control many more victims."

Mr Wainwright said that people trafficking was regarded as a "low-risk, high profit" activity by criminal gangs generating an estimated £100 billion for organised crime.

Up to 36 million people worldwide are thought to be held in modern slavery, with at least 500,000 in Europe.

Most of the victims in Europe are from Romania, Bulgaria and Hungary, while Britain is one of the main destinations for trafficking, along with Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands.

"As things currently stand, organised crime groups are going about the business of modern slavery and with little fear of being caught and pursued. We urgently need to do much better," Mr Wainwright said.

"The international law enforcement community needs to trust each other a bit more.

“There is no point in sitting on a vital piece of information in one country if it can break a syndicate spread across five or more others.

"The culture of policing must change."

In September the National Crime Agency warned that human trafficking gangs were tattooing their victims to “signify ownership” as it published figures showing a surge in the number of British people exploited by gangs.

The NCA, described as “Britain’s FBI”, also disclosed that some victims of human traffickers are sold between gangs for as little as £200.

Liam Vernon, the head of the agency’s UK Human Trafficking Centre, said there was some emerging evidence that tattoos had been used to mark victims “like cattle”.

Mr Vernon said he wanted to highlight the reports so that police and other officials could watch out for the barbaric practice.

SOURCE: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/11253089/Facebook-used-to-enslave-people-trafficking-victims.html