How to Stop Human Trafficking: Anti-Human Trafficking Investigations

Stopping human trafficking and modern slavery is a priority for many law enforcement agencies around the world, with specialized investigators leading the fight. The Department of Homeland Security Blue Campaign defines human trafficking as involving the "use of force, fraud, or coercion to obtain some type of labor or commercial sex act. Every year, millions of men, women, and children are trafficked worldwide – including right here in the United States. It can happen in any community and victims can be of any age, race, gender, or nationality. Traffickers might use violence, manipulation, or false promises of well-paying jobs or romantic relationships to lure victims into trafficking situations."

The rate at which people are trafficked is staggering. “Female victims continue to be particularly affected by trafficking in persons. In 2018, for every 10 victims detected globally, about five were adult women and two were girls. About one-third of the overall detected victims were children, both girls (19 percent) and boys (15 percent), while 20 percent were adult men.”

Child pornography- more properly identified as Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM). It’s appalling that there is a need for a definition for this kind of material. U.S. Federal Law defines child pornography as any visual depiction of sexually explicit conduct involving a minor- meaning any person less than 18 years old.

However, with the emergence of more dedicated law enforcement teams who use the right tools, more human traffickers are being caught. “More traffickers are being brought to justice every year - globally, the number of people convicted per 100,000 population has nearly tripled since 2003, when the protocol entered into force. Having anti-trafficking legislation in place and investing in national capacities and international cooperation strengthens responses.” - Ghada Waly, Executive Director, United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime.

ADF Solutions and what we can do:

Anti-Human Trafficking investigators use Open Source Intelligence in their initial investigation to find what they are looking for. Once that OSINT information is used and targets and target devices have been located, there is no better way to quickly tie it all together than by using Digital Evidence Investigator PRO. Using Search Profiles customized with your unique OSINT information, target devices are quickly identified and evidence documented on scene. Our tools can:

• Scan phones and computers for human trafficking traces
• Capture contacts, messages, and financial exchange data
• Quickly link User activity to files of interest
• Automatically tag and classify images and videos (people, faces, pornography, drugs, weapons, more)
• Translate multilingual text to English from more than 230 languages to identify and Gist entities important to your case (people, places, drugs, weapons, more)

Human Trafficking can often be a component of financial crimes, child exploitation cases, and other types of crimes so this webinar will teach law enforcement agents how to quickly extend their investigations to help quickly identify possible human trafficking or further their human trafficking case beginning on-scene.

Images and quotes sourced from the UNODC Global Report on Trafficking In Persons 2020.