Protecting girls from pimps on social media – WiredSafety.org's Parry Aftab on rise of online sex trafficking

More and more, pimps are using social media to lure unsuspecting girls into prostitution. A CNNMoney investigation uncovered the shocking reality, though there are few hard statistics on the sope of the trend.

More and more women are accepting friends on sites like Facebook only to find a pimp on the other end of the request. CNNMoney conducted interviews with victims of these crimes in California, Virginia and Washington to uncover how social networks are being used for human sex trafficking.

WiredSafety.org executive director Parry Aftab started seeing instances of pimps luring victims into prostitution in 2001 through her work with internet security and for teens and children in particular. She sits on an informal Facebook advisory board and has received child recovery awards for her work fighting online sex trafficking. Aftab comes to “Starting Point” with more on the issue.

Aftab says that more people than we realize are being recruited into prostitution via social networks. “People are lonely, they’re looking for love, they’re looking for affection,” Aftab says.

Pimps know how to spot insecure women and the methods by which to manipulate them. “There are ten different categories of sexual predation ploys that are used,” she says, and on social media “you can play with those different ways to find out what will lure that young woman.”

It’s not easy to walk away once they realize the situation because, Aftab says, “they’re needy” and vulnerable. “And these young women are often threatened. They’re lured through love; they might be enticed with money.”

Parents also aren’t monitoring the social media pages of these victims who are often16 or 17 years old. “Unless you’re smart about using social media,” she says, “you’re far more exposed.”