Research Survey Invitation: Social Media-Facilitated Trafficking of Children and Young People.

What is the project about?

There is increasing acknowledgement that different information and communication technologies, including social media, are central to the modus operandi of traffickers – facilitating activities such as communication between perpetrators, victims, and those who use the goods and services resulting from exploitation.  And as children and young people’s use of social media increases, they are at higher risk of exploitation.

Through this research, they seek to better understand the role that social media plays in the trafficking and exploitation of children and young people.

Findings from the project will help inform the development of responses to detect, deter and disrupt social media-facilitated trafficking of children and young people. You can find out more about the project here.

Who do they want to complete the survey? 

Parties of interest include (but are not limited to) law enforcement, NGOs, Community-Interest-Companies (CICs), businesses, social care, youth justice, and other statutory and non-statutory actors who might encounter directly or indirectly with children and young people affected by social media facilitated trafficking. This could be in the capacity of detection, enforcement, diversion, support, recovery, and others.

What questions are in the survey, and how long will it take?

The survey will take approximately 15 minutes to complete and includes questions on the prevalence of social media usage in the trafficking and exploitation of children and young people and organisations’ preparedness to identify, disrupt and prevent this form of crime.  

The survey can be found here.