secdev.foundation
23 September 2016 Volume # 16
NOTES
“Short analytical briefs on emerging topics related
to The SecDev Foundation’s work”
Human Trafficking and Social Media:
From Threat to Opportunity?
On 9 September, Facebook user Mimi Vu posted a traumatic
account of every parent’s worst fear – a child deceived and
stolen by human traffickers.
Mimi, a staff member at Pacific Links Foundation, relayed the story of an ethnic
Hmong woman from Lao Cai province in northern Vietnam, standing all of 4’8” tall,
who tracked down her daughter and took her back from traffickers in China.
The daughter had borrowed her mother’s smartphone and started using Facebook.
There, she met a Hmong man who convinced her and a friend to meet him. He
lured her to China where he sold her as a bride.
When the mother realized her daughter was missing, she accessed her child’s Facebook account and saw messages from the Hmong man. Illiterate, she had a friend
read the chats to her. She printed the man’s profile picture and gave it to the police.
By examining his profile, she was able to locate his home village as well as pictures
of his house.
TIA SANG VIETNAM
Tia Sáng Viêt Nam supports
online safety and internet
freedom in Vietnam. The
initiative aims to support a
range of stakeholders by
researching internet and
society issues and making
strategic interventions to
support online safety and cyber
security among Vietnamese
youth.
Human Trafficking and Social Media: From Threat to Opportunity?
Pacific Links Foundation’s Mimi Vu posted the story of this mother’s efforts to find her missing daughter.
The mother then travelled to the man’s home and confronted his
trafficking networks. In Vietnam, Zalo is the most popular chat
parents, until they admitted their son was in China. At the same
app with a reported 50 million users, followed by social network,
time, a Vietnamese woman in China spotted the daughter, realized
Facebook, with over 30 million users.
what was happening and took her from a man who had just
purchased her. The daughter was then able to contact her mother
on Zalo (a Vietnamese chat app). Throughout this ordeal, the
mother did not eat or sleep for days.
Shortly after reuniting in China and returning to Vietnam, the
mother learned that her nieces had gone missing as well. She led
search parties to try to find them.
As Mimi wrote: “for better or worse, (this) mom has become the goto person when someone goes missing in her village. It’s sad, she
says, but at least she knows what to do.”
Social Media a Mixed Blessing
With smartphone use now over 50 percent of the population
and rising fast, even in rural areas, young girls are coming across
a technology that parents and schools have little ability to guide
them on.
Traffickers use mobile chat and social network apps to contact
young women.
“The men pretend to love them but sell them into the sex industry
in China. These women, ashamed and alone, don’t know where
to turn,” says Lawyer Van Ngoc Ta, who works for anti-trafficking
charity Blue Dragon Children’s Foundation.
Matt Friedman of the Mekong Club, another anti-trafficking
Vietnam is one of the world’s top origin countries for human
organization, told IRIN News: “All throughout Asia we are seeing
trafficking. With China expected to have 30-40 million more
increases in the use of social media to trap women and girls into
men than women by 2020, young girls in neighbouring Vietnam
prostitution, including Vietnam. The predators search chat sites
are particularly targeted as brides or for prostitution. Malaysia,
to find young girls who are feeling unloved and alienated by their
Singapore and Western countries are also destinations for
family.”
trafficked Vietnamese women and men.
Mimi Vu of Pacific Links notes that it is not only women from poor
Recent social and technological developments have not helped.
or disadvantaged households who are at risk. The image of an
There is rampant use of social media to lure young girls into
unloved or alienated youth may not always be true either.
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Human Trafficking and Social Media: From Threat to Opportunity?
“The Vietnamese police tell us that one of the fastest growing
government anti-trafficking centre uses a ‘big data’ system
groups of trafficking victims are high school and college students,
designed by Palantir to help find missing children.
almost all through social media and chat forums. It turns the
traditional victim profile on its head because these are educated
girls who come from ‘good’ families,” Mimi says. “They perhaps
bond over music, celebrities, or something that the trafficker finds
in common with the girl. They chat for a while online… and then he
proposes to meet in real life. This is what happens in the US and
the West, and it’s unfortunately coming to Vietnam.”
At an anti-trafficking conference in Hanoi in June, the Ministry of
Public Security reported that trafficking cases rose 11.6 percent
over a four-year period.
While Vietnam’s government has taken steps such as launching
a database of trafficking cases, the US State Department notes
that convictions of traffickers fell last year from 413 in 2014, to
217. Vietnam has delayed implementation of its 2015 Penal Code,
which contains stricter articles on human trafficking. Even with the
potential for legal progress, Vietnam is falling behind in the race to
use mobile technology.
Social Media a Mixed Blessing
Vietnam would likely need substantial technical assistance to make
a social media-based amber alert system a reality. In the short run,
a more immediate impact can be achieved through social media
outreach campaigns to raise awareness among at-risk groups
(namely, young women and their parents).
Michael Brosowski, founder of Blue Dragon Foundation, believes
it is time for social media to play a stronger role in anti-trafficking
efforts. His organization operates a Facebook Page for kids as part
of one of their programs in central Vietnam, as well as a website
(www.cuocsongmoi.org) that aims to inform rural youth on the
dangers of trafficking.
Michael sees potential for NGOs and state agencies to move
beyond traditional mainstream media campaigns. “In Vietnam,
Facebook and Zalo are the big social networks, and there’s
enormous potential to reach young people in targeted and tailored
ways.
“Social mdia has the potential to get messages more carefully
crafted to the individual, and that’s what is missing from the
Although social media is currently helping traffickers, it also offers
generic ‘awareness campaign’ approach that has been so popular
opportunities to fight back. As a 2012 report on technology and
with NGOs.”
trafficking noted:
Michael says that while most people are aware that trafficking
“Data gleaned from cellphones and mobile networks
exists, they lack a specific understanding of how it might happen to
constitute a trail of information and evidence that can be
them.
a powerful tool in identifying, tracking, and prosecuting
traffickers. Mobile technologies can also be used to reach
vulnerable communities and raise public awareness.”
Social media allows ‘amber alert’ style warnings to spread rapidly,
and crowdsourcing information can help immensely – as it did for
the Hmong mother.
Making sense of large numbers of alerts and crowdsourced
information, however, is not easy. In the United States, a
“That’s where social media could play a role in changing behaviour
and understanding – but so far we’ve seen very little of this.”
Blue Dragon has produced videos that show the plight of
trafficking victims. While these videos mainly target potential
donors, it might well be time to turn stories like this toward a new
target audience – youth and parents across Vietnam.
Written by : michael l. gray
the secdev foundation
The SecDev Foundation is an Ottawa-based think-do tank that works at the cross-roads of security,
development and new technology. The SecDev Foundation believes that information can change the world. We
see that new technologies can empower people out of conflict, insecurity and oppression. Our mission is to
understand how; our goal is to help that change happen.
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