Giving Compass' Take:

• Human traffickers are targeting individuals by pretending to be travel agents on Facebook, but are then packing people into boats across the Mediterranean. 

• Theresa May proposes that the same techniques that tackle online extremism should be used to address online human trafficking. Is that enough to fight these challenges?

•  Read more about human trafficking and how donors can help. 

People smugglers are openly using Facebook and other social media sites to target people in developing countries — taking advantage of their desperation to start a new life elsewhere.

In the past year alone, officials in the UK have identified 539 social media pages — mainly on Facebook — advertising routes to Europe.

And the “travel agent” style adverts are reportedly reassuring, according to the Guardian, giving the impression that it would be for normal transport.   In reality, people are being packed into small boats with no life jackets, and set adrift on the Mediterranean.  Some sites were also highlighted as offering discounted rates for children.

UK Prime Minister Theresa May announced a crackdown on social media sites being used to advertise human trafficking, at a summit on migration in Salzburg, Austria.

“To achieve this, we must tackle the enabling environment — all those factors that make it far too easy for criminal networks to emerge and grow, putting migrants’ lives at such risk,” she said.

May suggested that the same techniques used to tackle extremism online should be used to combat human traffickers.

 

Read the full article about human traffickers by Imogen Calderwood at Global Citizen