Human trafficking

Fighting sex trafficking: behind the app helping the FBI bust pimps

The stats paint a pretty grim picture of how the illegal sex trade flourishes in the United States. According to the National Human Trafficking Resource Center, their hotline received 22,795 cases of human trafficking between 2007 and 2015.

That’s over seven human trafficking cases reported every day.

Emily started researching the illegal sex trade in America by going online - and beginning to “think like a detective”, she says.

“Most sex trafficking in the US masquerades as prostitution, and because pimps want the broadest audience for their ads, they tend to stay on the public web, because it’s the most mainstream; it’s the fastest, easiest way to get buyers.”

“What I didn’t know when I first started the research at my university is that there’s tens of thousands of these ads per day.”