| Human traffickers often advertise children for sex by posting explicit photos usually taken in hotel rooms. Law enforcement can easily find these photos on the Internet, but the challenge is finding out where these photos were taken– that’s where you can help.
Sometimes it takes a village to save a child– the Traffickcam app is creating a virtual network intended to save children from sex trafficking. Traffickcam allow users to upload photos of hotel rooms across the nation to add to a database that law enforcement can compare against photos they find on the Internet of children being sold for sex. “Anything that we can do as a culture and as a society to get as many people involved with trying to find a solution, the better,” said Elizabeth Smith, founder of I’m Aware, a local non-profit that fights human trafficking. Traffickcam launched June 20th and already has more than 56,000 downloads. Law enforcement officers say the app has an 85 percent accuracy rate so far. The app is easy to use. All you do is upload up to four photos of your hotel room, add the hotel name and room number and press submit. It only takes a few minutes. That way, investigators can compare pictures they see of victims to the photos in the database. Uploads from any hotel are encouraged because trafficking can happen anywhere– from motels to five star resorts, making it extremely difficult to detect. “The rescue rate is just a little bit over one percent of trafficking victims I believe, so there’s a lot that goes on,” Smith said. Augusta’s location makes it a regular stop for traffickers. “There’s obviously a lot of trafficking that’s going to go through your major thoroughfares,” Smith said. “Augusta sits right in between Atlanta and Columbia, so you know it’s a prime spot for stopping” Master’s Week brings in a whole new slew of buyers. Although Traffickcam may help bring Johns to justice and save child sex slaves, Smith says human trafficking won’t be eradicated until the demand stops. “It’s very dangerous crime,” she said. “These traffickers, a lot of them are ex-drug cartel and ex drug traffickers that have discovered that you can sell a drug one time—you can sell a person over and over and over again.” According to the FBI, the average female victim becomes involved in sexual exploitation at 13. Traffickcam is free on Android and iOS, and developers say they’re looking to collect millions of photos. WJBF © July 2016
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