Facebook and Instagram: Market for child sex trafficking
- After two years of investigation, The Guardian publishes a report denouncing the use of Facebook and Instagram platforms by criminals engaged in child trade. The media interview the creator Tina Frundt of Courney’s House, who serves minors who have survived sex trafficking, sold as a child.
Meta, a huge company owned by Facebook and Instagram, has many policies to prevent sex trafficking. But over the past two years, Facebook and Instagram have become the top child rescue platforms, according to The Guardian interviews, survivors' testimonies and American court documents.
According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), the Internet allows traffickers to find clients and victims and targets children through social media. Facebook, the largest, is used by over 3 billion people worldwide. In 2020, according to a report by Human Trafficking Institute, Facebook was the most widely used social network for child recruitment.
Raw testimonies of child transactions
Courtney's House is just outside Washington. Frundt and his team try to make the two-story house feel like a family home. Frundt was also sold as a child. He is now one of the defenders of child trafficking.
In the interview by The Guardian, Frundte says that when talking to a young man he asks for his first Instagram account. She also says she is constantly asking Instagram to close accounts and to remove child exploitation content.
Children sent to Frundt by the police or social services are sexually exploited and controlled by a boyfriend, pimp or family member. She says that, almost without exception, sexual abuse is those who have a childhood marked by poverty and violence.
Frundte says that almost everyone who goes to Courtney’s House is reasoned children fighting stereotypes that sexualize. According to a study by the Center for Justice on Inequality, adults believe that black people have greater sexual knowledge.
Frundte tells the case of a girl. According to him, a man asked him to lay naked and give him the Instagram password to be able to upload the photos to his profile. Frundt says the girl told her that the man was using the Instagram profile to have sex, and in a short time, sex shoppers started sending direct messages on their own with the intention of making an appointment.
One morning, Frundt found the woman on the street, semi-naked and confused. The girl explained that the night before, a sex buyer opposed his will and was raped in a group. "He was scared and blamed. I had to work hard to help you realize that the fault was not yours," Frundte said in the Guardian interview.
