Write Althea and Arhs, LUDCI.eu Editorial team
Human trafficking is a worldwide epidemic where young women and girls are tortured and psychologically manipulated into becoming an unwilling part of an organised criminal enterprise. Many spend years under the thrall of these monsters until they are finally rescued by authorities or die.
Many are groomed by people they thought cared for or even loved them. Until they suddenly turn on them and sell them into “the lifestyle.”
“They need protection, because they’ve never had it, and then that person exploits them for money,” Julie Cordua, CEO of Thorn told Quartz.
This is why tracking patterns with AI is important. Authorities are now using artificial intelligence to not only find these young girls and save them from trafficking but also to find and prosecute the vast criminal enterprises behind these heinous crimes.
In today’s digital world, most trafficking occurs over the Internet in ads on countless adult sites. There are thousands of ads with thousands of anonymous girls that people can contact and meet in seedy hotel rooms.
The Internet is vast with websites popping up and going away every day. How can law enforcement find and track these ads? Artificial intelligence’s ability to sort through large amounts of data and analyse has made the job far easier.
According to Forbes, companies such as Marinus Analytics and Giant Oak, developed technology that can search through public information on the Internet to find patterns of sex trafficking. In addition to facial recognition, it can find other patterns, such as bedsheets or wallpaper to determine if people are trafficked from similar hotel rooms.
“Computer vision can identify the same pattern in many different photos, like the pattern in a hotel bedspread. This helps law enforcement identify multiple victims advertised and sold from the same hotel room,” President and Co-Founder of Marinus Analytics told Forbes.
This effort brings a tangled web into a better focus. Human trafficking is a massive enterprise that brings in millions of dollars for organised crime syndicates throughout the world. Their web of money laundering is complex and often difficult to discern from legitimate expenses.
Traffickers rent countless hotel rooms throughout the year. But many legitimate companies also rent hotel rooms throughout the year for their employees. How can you tell one from the other? It is a complex puzzle where authorities have a hard time seeing and putting the pieces together.
AI helps them by using the same techniques that Google and Facebook use to understand how people connect, what they buy, etc. and using them to identify patterns of sex trafficking in financial documents, according to Phys.org.
AI mixed with highly trained law enforcement officials can make serious strides in ending this life-altering crime.
“Technology alone can’t solve the problem,” adds Long, “but when we combine it with training efforts to develop highly-skilled, trauma-informed investigators and prosecutors, we can enhance victim identification and safety,” Jennifer Gentile Long, CEO of Aequitas told Phys.org.
Conclusion:
AI can do more than just examine data. It can save lives. As artificial intelligence evolves, it will become an even more powerful tool in human trafficking to give these young women, boys, and girls the help, opportunities, and future they deserve. If crime syndicates all over the world are able to victimise children as young as 3 years old, AI can find them and bring them to justice. The faster this happens, the fewer victims there will be. Technology alone cannot do all. But with the help and pressure coming from law enforcement agencies, IGOs, NGOs, and all media channels, the crime can be detected earlier, prosecuted, and pulled from its bare roots.
Photo by Pexels
