Apps, social media fuel 'booming' online prostitution: study
Apps, social media fuel 'booming' online prostitution:
study
Alexandre HIELARD AFP • June 4, 2019
Paris (AFP) - Apps like Facebook and Tinder are fuelling
the "soaring industry" of online prostitution and sexual
exploitation, according to a worldwide study published by a French
anti-prostitution group on Tuesday.
Prostitution has moved "from the street to the
Internet", where pimps recruit young girls via Snapchat and Instagram before
prostituting them in apartments rented on Airbnb, said anti-prostitution group
Fondation Scelles.
The report, "Sexual exploitation: New challenges,
news answers" looked at trends in 35 countries.
In Israel, dating app Tinder is the most popular tool to
find prostitutes, while in Zambia students in cybercafes join Whatsapp and
Facebook groups to connect with prostitutes and pimps in a few clicks, the
report said.
In France, gangs contact underage girls from
"welfare homes and high schools" on social networks such as Facebook
and Snapchat, promising "opportunities to make money very quickly"
before posting online advertisements and prostituting them.
Adverts on dating websites and online forums about
sexuality -- but also "websites having no direct connection to this
theme" -- facilitate "the concealment, anonymity and discretion... of
these illegal activities", the study said.
"This is happening around the world, from
restrictive countries like China, to Germany where legislation is more
lenient," Yves Charpenel, head of the Fondation Scelles told AFP.
However, it can be hard to track down perpetrators, who
hide behind online anonymity and ambiguous advertisements for
"massages" and "pleasant moments".
"From the same computer, a criminal network can find
its 'products', advertise to clients, and then launder the money,"
Charpenel said.
He condemned the "industrial scale" of online
prostitution, which allows pimps to "avoid personal risk" by creating
a distance from their victims.
- 'Mobilise social networks' -
In recent years, governments have grappled with the
problem of balancing internet freedom and holding sites accountable for their
content.
Last March, the US Congress passed a bill that allows
victims of sex trafficking to seek justice against website owners who knowingly
promote or facilitate the practise.
A month later, US authorities shut down classified
advertising website Backpage -- accused of being the biggest website for
prostitution in the world -- and indicted the site's co-founders on charges of
enabling prostitution and money laundering.
In France, advertising site Vivastreet shut down its
"Encounters" section last June to prevent "abuse" or
"inappropriate use" from "certain users".
"These are the first significant milestones towards
an authentic governance of the Internet," the report said.
The organisation called on authorities to "mobilise
social networks" and hold accountable websites which profit from online
prostitution.
"We need to go further," it said.
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