Abstract
Cybersex trafficking is a complex harrowing global reality. Where human trafficking for sex was previously restricted to physical contact, human trafficking has become increasingly virtual. The world wide web (WWW) has become an ideal forum for the enticement, capture, and control of victims for cybersex. This chapter examines this reality. It first explains human trafficking and demonstrates the appealing move to online for the generation of profit through cybersex, all at the expense of victims. Second, it outlines the dynamics involved in cybersex trafficking. The chapter then isolates efforts to stave off the exponential growth of this industrial complex. Finally, it isolates particular areas of research for further study.
TopIntroduction
Thirty years ago, on August 6, 1991, citizens across the world were able to access the World Wide Web (Web). There was not much fanfare. Tim Berners-Lee, acknowledged now as the Web’s creator offered an explanation of this new technology (Berners-Lee, 2000). The first website was a series of text: https://www.ic3.gov/Media/PDF/AnnualReport/2020_IC3Report.pdf). In 2020 alone, the IC3 reported that it received 69% more complaints than in 2019 with financial damages over $4.1 billion USD. By 2025, cybercrime is predicted to cost the world $10.5 Trillion USD annually (Morgan, 2020). Consequently, to offset the threats, the amount of money companies allocate in their annual budget for cybersecurity increases every year.
Key Terms in this Chapter
Cybersex Trafficking: Non-consensual cybersex between two or more people using a technologically-mediated environment. The sexual engagement is often live-streamed on a Webcam but can be archived for distribution. Cybersex trafficking is criminal; it involves coercion, entrapment, manipulation, abuse, and often extortion, particularly of vulnerable populations.
Internet: A system of computer networks connected through the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) that can be accessed through a dial-up modem, digital or cable network like, satellite, or broadband connection. The thirty-year-old platform connects individual academic, economic, personal, political, religious, and social networks to provide the global village with access to information, communication, and other critical transactions before not available.
Cybersex: Sexual activity between two or more people facilitated through a virtual environment. Cybersex can be text-based, sexting, or through the use of a Webcam to imitate real-time sexual engagement.
Cybersecurity: Strategic scientific policies and practices of individuals and corporations to ensure the integrity of computer systems and networks from criminal activity. Such abuse ranges from lurking, stealing, manipulating, or outright controlling individual computers or networked systems. Any cyberattack that is successful can significantly paralyze business or an individual’s life. To resolve the instability or frozen nature of technology, hackers often seek to be compensated by a ransom, many times in cryptocurrency to ensure anonymity.
Human Trafficking: The use and abuse of human persons for any exploitative reason. It is a multi-billion dollar industry that manipulates humans to unwillingly serve in a variety of compromising realities. Those trafficked are essentially conscripted by their captors to serve them and their needs whether it be for purposes of work, sex, crime, medicine, marriage.
Slavery: Coercion of another person for the purpose of utility. Slavery may be on an individual or wider-scale effort. A slave serves an owner at the enslaver’s discretion. The type, location, and amount of work as well as the duration of time of slavery is dependent on an owner’s discretion or the agreed terms. Slavery is a crime; it is affront to human dignity.
World Wide Web: Also known as the Web or WWW, it is the user-friendly information system on which users interact with others and resources on the Internet, which forms the framework for the Web and undergirds the Web’s technological power. Invented in 1989 by the English scientist Tim Berners-Lee, the Web was available for public use in 1991. As websites were constructed, the Web gained popularity and now in 2021 serves as the platform for 4.66 billion people for its resources and interaction.