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Secretary of State Antony Blinken focused on human trafficking using digital tools in a yearly report the department released on Monday.

“Digital tools have amplified the reach, scale, and speed of trafficking,” Blinken wrote in the 2024 Trafficking in Persons Report. “They use online platforms to sell illicit sexual content. They leverage encrypted messaging and digital currencies to evade detection.”

“Trafficking is the very definition of a problem that no one nation can solve alone,” Blinken said.

The International Labour Organization estimated in 2021 27.6 million people were in forced labor, an increase of 2.7 million from 2016. Of those 27.6 million, the ILO estimated 6.3 million were in forced commercial sexual exploitation and 3.9 million in forced labor imposed by a state.

“Unfortunately, some governments are part of the problem,” said Ambassador at-Large Cindy Dyer.

Read more here. 

Blinken said the use of online tools has made it possible for traffickers to expand their reach.

The headlines are gut-wrenching. Young boys, targeted online by perpetrators in disguise, are being manipulated to produce sexual imagery only to be immediately exploited for monetary gain under the pressure of severe social shaming. Some have not survived the experience.

Stories like James’, have gained national attention and Thorn has new evidence that this kind of exploitation is occurring at an alarming rate and continues to gain momentum. It’s called financial sextortion – a devastating form of exploitation leveraging sexual imagery for monetary gain – and it’s deeply concerning for all children growing up in the digital age.

Our groundbreaking study, “Trends in Financial Sextortion: An investigation of sextortion reports in NCMEC CyberTipline data,” conducted in collaboration with the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC), shows that financial sextortion is sharply on the rise, and is a tactic that is primarily used on unsuspecting teenage boys.

Read more here.

Deb Schmill has become a fixture on Capitol Hill. Last week alone, she visited the offices of 13 lawmakers, one of more than a dozen trips she has made from her home near Boston over the past two years.

In each meeting, Ms. Schmill talks about her daughter Becca, who died in 2020 at age 18. Ms. Schmill said Becca had died after taking fentanyl-laced drugs bought on Facebook. Before that, she said, her daughter was raped by a boy she had met online, then was cyberbullied on Snapchat.

“I have to do what I can to help pass legislation to protect other children and to prevent what happened to Becca from happening to them,” Ms. Schmill, 60, said. “It’s my coping mechanism.”

Ms. Schmill is among dozens of parents who are lobbying for the Kids Online Safety Act, or KOSA, a bill that would require social media, gaming and messaging apps to limit features that could heighten depression or bullying or lead to sexual exploitation. The bill, which has the greatest momentum of any broad tech industry legislation in years, would also require the tech services to turn on the highest privacy and safety settings by default for users under 17 and let youths opt out of some features that can lead to compulsive use.

Read more here. 

NOTE: The Warriors does disagree with the fact that it has been reported that 50 million+ people have been exploited. I don’t know where the 27 million people fact comes from?

Message From the Secretary of State

Washington, D.C. – Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) today conducted a colloquy with Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) on the Kids Online Safety Act. Below is the colloquy:

Leader Schumer: I see my friend, Senator Blumenthal, is on the floor and I’d ask him to engage in a colloquy on a very important issue, a top priority of mine, and a bill that I am a proud cosponsor of, the Kids Online Safety Act.

Senator Blumenthal: Thank you to my colleague, Leader Schumer. The Leader has been working tirelessly to get this bill done. I’ve seen the work up close and I have seen the benefits. After pushing and cajoling, we are much closer to ultimate success. This bill, which has nearly 70 cosponsors, is a set of safeguards and accountability measures to protect kids from the clear and horrific harms created by social media and other online platforms. The bill is responsive to the countless stories that we’ve heard from bereaved parents and young people about the terrible consequences these platforms have had on their lives. And just to repeat I want to thank my colleague Leader Schumer. The Leader has been working tirelessly to get this bill done, I have seen the work up close and I have seen the benefits. After pushing and cajoling, we are much closer to ultimate success.

Leader Schumer: I thank my colleague, like him I have personally met with the families that have been harmed, I have seen their terrible stories and I am committed, completely committed, to work with them to get KOSA across the finish line. With the hard work of Senator Blumenthal and Senator Blackburn, KOSA has passed through the Commerce Committee unanimously and has gotten up to 70 cosponsors. Last month, I put together a plan to get KOSA done through unanimous consent for a time agreement on the floor. I personally helped resolve issues and mitigated unintended consequences of the bill. That effort reduced the opposition but there are still hold outs.

Senator Blumenthal: As the Leader said, we have made significant progress in resolving outstanding issues. This work is hard, but I think it is without doubt that we are closer under his leadership. I also thank my partner in this effort, Sen. Blackburn, as well as the amazing parents and youth advocates who have worked so hard on this bill.  Put plainly, I am confident based on my conversations with Leader Schumer we are going to get this bill done.

Leader Schumer: I thank my colleague once again for his good work. After weeks of work, we have made real progress in removing objections to this bill. Sadly, objectors remain. I hope that progress can continue over the coming days. If the objectors refuse to come to a resolution, we must pursue a different legislative path to get this done.

Although a sex trafficking victim can’t prove Marriott and its franchisee had an established business relationship with her trafficker, she can proceed with arguments that hotel staff should have done more to intervene, a federal judge ruled.

Hotel chain Marriott International and a local California franchisee must face claims they were complicit in sex trafficking because neither party did enough to intervene and help a woman who showed signs of being trafficked, a federal judge ruled.

In a complaint filed last August in federal court in California, an anonymous woman said her traffickers shuttled her between various chain hotels in Sacramento and the Bay Area. She brought claims against several hotel companies, including Marriott and a franchisee, over what she said were violations of the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act.

The victim said her traffickers chose hotels where they could pay in cash or prepaid cards and knew the staff. Her complaint also named other companies, including Wyndham Hotels and Resorts.

The victim said there were obvious signs of sex trafficking that should have set off alarm bells for staff. Men who were not guests at the hotels came in and out at odd hours, she said, while she often appeared undressed, malnourished, sleep-deprived and bruised.

In addition, the victim said, her trafficker screamed at her in hotel rooms and physically assaulted her in public areas. She said staff were aware of these red flags and others, including evidence of illegal drug use, and yet did not report the suspicious activity to police.

Read more here.

An estimated 24.9 million people are trafficked worldwide every year, according to experts from the Department of State.

A majority of victims are trafficked through airports and highways, prompting a national moving company to do something to make a critical change.

Good Greek Moving and Storage is partnering with Place of Hope, an anti-human trafficking nonprofit organization, to turn its more than 600 employees into human trafficking first responders.

Experts from Place of Hope have started training Good Greek’s employees on how to spot traffickers and their victims.

Unlike many others trained to spot traffickers, moving crews have unique access to highways and the inside of people’s homes.

“We’re at truck stops and rest areas, and quite often these are areas where victims can be trafficked, and we need to be vigilant and be able to identify these situation where we can call 911 or the authorities that help in that area,” Good Greek Moving and Storage Founder Spero Georgedakis said.

Place of Hope takes in survivors of human trafficking, giving them a stable place to live and the resources needed to heal from the trauma.

Good Greek Moving and Storage will also be covering some of their moving trucks with a unique QR code for potential trafficking victims to see and use.

Instagram regularly recommends sexual videos to accounts for teenagers that appear interested in racy content, and does so within minutes of when they first log in, according to tests by The Wall Street Journal and an academic researcher.

The tests, run over seven months ending in June, show that the social-media service has continued pushing adult-oriented content to minors after parent Meta Platforms META 0.44%increase; green up pointing triangle

said in January that it was giving teens a more age-appropriate experience by restricting what it calls sensitive content including sexually suggestive material.

Report of the Special Rapporteur on violence against women and girls, its causes and consequences, Reem Alsalem*
Summary
In the present report, the Special Rapporteur on violence against women and girls, its causes and consequences examines violence against women and girls as a form, cause and consequence of prostitution.

Introduction
1. The Special Rapporteur on violence against women and girls, its causes and
consequences, Reem Alsalem, submits the present report pursuant to Human Rights Council
resolution 50/7. In the report, the Special Rapporteur examines violence against women and
sexual exploitation as a form, cause and consequence of prostitution, assesses the key
conceptual frameworks and terminologies, international human rights and legal standards,
and takes stock of legislative and policy models. In response to the call for input to the report,
the Special Rapporteur received some 300 submissions from a wide range of stakeholders.1
The Special Rapporteur also convened seven online consultations with 86 experts and women
with lived experiences from across all continents.

Read more here.