Cybersex trafficking is the exploitation of a person through the internet via webcam, photos, videos, or other digital media. Like sex trafficking, the victim is forced to provide sexual services via force, fraud, or coercion.
Unlike sex trafficking, victims will likely never come into contact with most of their buyers. Instead, their traffickers may stream, film, or photograph their assault from a central location—which can be anywhere in the world with an internet connection—and send the material to paying online predators.
Cyber Sex Trafficking: A Crime on the Rise
The internet has created a way for people to instantly connect with others around the world. Connections are only becoming faster and stronger as technology continues to evolve. While this is wonderful for families, long-distance friends, and those with common interests, it also makes it easier for traffickers to find, recruit, and exploit unsuspecting victims without getting caught.
Worldwide, more than 4 billion people are using the internet, which is well over half the world’s total population. This gives traffickers virtually limitless marketing potential and direct access to many vulnerable populations, such as unmonitored children, runaways, those experiencing homelessness, and those living in isolation or poverty.
Cybersex Trafficking is Replacing Traditional Forms of Human Trafficking
Governments are increasingly taking notice of human trafficking and dedicating laws and forces to suppress it. Due to a generally stricter stance on this problem in many countries, traffickers are seeking opportunities to continue their operations without leaving traces of their location or identity for law enforcement to find. For many, this means moving their operations into the digital world.
The internet can provide traffickers with a layer of protection against the law. In many cases, perpetrators are able to remain essentially anonymous—using pseudonyms, fake photos, and virtual private networks (VPN). Additionally, the increasing popularity of cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin (which is popular on the dark web) make monetary exchanges harder to trace back to personal bank accounts.
| Traditional Sex Trafficking | Cybersex Trafficking |
| Trafficker exploits the vulnerable to a limited amount of customers, who are physically present at the scene of the crime. | Trafficker exploits the vulnerable to a potentially unlimited number of customers, who do not have to be in the same physical location. |
| The cost of attracting and hosting customers is high, involving things like advertising, rent, staff, and security. | The cost of attracting and servicing customers is incredibly low, including only a computer, internet services, and a small room. |
| Trafficker must be hyper-aware of concealing crime. | Trafficker has protections available to conceal online activity. |
| Trafficker may have to transport or sell victim in an attempt to evade arrest. | Trafficker can remain at single location while exploiting victim. |
| Governments are likely to have personnel trained to arrest and/or prosecute the crime. | Governments may not have manpower or resources to investigate the complexity of the crime. |
Grooming Children Online
In the United States specifically, nearly 80% of the American population owns smartphones and up to 98% of middle school students have access to Wi-Fi. Worldwide, kids and young adults aged 12–29 are the most connected age group; 95% of this demographic is currently online. Platforms like social media, forums, discord/private chat servers, and online games—all places where youth are highly active—are ideal environments for traffickers to both recruit and exploit victims.
Traffickers can take the shape of faceless online “friends” who spend months grooming (befriending and building a relationship with) children to build trust over time so they can coax them into a life of abuse and exploitation. By giving the victim attention, care, and gifts, or by making enticing promises, traffickers can gain the confidence of unsuspecting youth.
Traffickers use many similar deception tactics online as they do offline. They might promise a good job to a poor student, pose as a role model or caring significant other to create dependence, or entrap a victim through indentured servitude for a compounding loan. Once a relationship is established, the trafficker can then manipulate or coerce the victim into performing sexual acts online, on the street, or both.
“What happens now is a lot of boys and girls being lured into the sex trade and exploited through the internet. There are many young boys and girls at internet cafés, on Facebook, and playing online games who are tricked by messages offering jobs. By the time they realize that they will be forced to sell their bodies, they’re already trapped. Most of the cases we see, even as high as 90%, are young boys who are lured in and sold on social media with the promise of money.”
–The Exodus Road Thailand Country Director
A cybersex trafficking story: Operation WEB in Thailand
The Exodus Road has been involved in several trafficking cases with cybersex elements in Southeast Asia—where the internet is easily accessible to anyone via internet cafés. Young boys and girls are often groomed online and then sexually abused.
While many traffickers take shrewd advantage of the veil of protection the digital realm can provide, they can be overconfident. In Operation Web, The Exodus Road’s Thailand team found a public post on social media with a brazen statement that said, “14-year-old boy sold for sex. Anyone interested in the service, call this phone.”
The Exodus Road operatives immediately launched investigations into the case to learn more about the pimp who posted the message and the young boy he was selling. They found out that the boy, Kamon,* was a 9th grader from a poor family in a rural area who had dropped out of school because his parents could no longer afford it. The 20-year-old pimp told the boy’s parents (whom he knew well) that he’d give their son a job carrying luggage at a hotel to make money. In reality, the trafficker recruited Kamon to provide sexual services for older men.
Kamon’s abuse had been going on for an entire year. But when The Exodus Road’s team saw the social media post, it only took two weeks to gather enough evidence to present to law enforcement to conduct the operation. The pimp was arrested by local Thai police, and Kamon was freed and given counseling at the safe home where he currently resides.
One of our Thai staff members gave us a recent update on Kamon and said he is now learning a trade and plans on returning to school in the near future. His social worker reported, “He looks totally different. The boy has a new life. He looks so very happy. At the moment, he is not exploited by anyone anymore, and he has a future.”
*Name representative
Know How to Report Cybersex Trafficking
If you, your friends, or your children notice suspicious behavior online, report it immediately. In severe cases, in which images or advertisements show underage individuals, file a report containing any relevant information you find (screen names, user IDs, links, etc.) with the National Human Trafficking Hotline’s online tip form or the NCMEC’s cyber tipline.
In short, if you see something, don’t hesitate to speak up. Your tip may help prevent someone from becoming a victim, lead to the rescue of a victim, or cause the arrest of an online predator.
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