2<\/sup> Andrea lived in a rural mountain village. One day, a cousin lured her away from her hometown, promising her a well-paid job as a babysitter in the city. Believing him, Andrea went to Negros Oriental, a province known for its tourism and scenic beaches.<\/p>\n\n\n\nAndrea never experienced Negros Oriental, nor did anyone in the city get to know Andrea. She arrived at a house with covered windows where a computer and camera were set up. In that house, Andrea became one of seven girls between the ages of 13 and 18 forced to satisfy sexual fantasies of men from around the world\u2014including from the United States\u2014who would pay $56 a minute to control sexual interactions with these underage girls via the computer, watching them through a live feed. Andrea\u2019s uncle, the man in charge of the operation, told her if she tried to escape, the police would put her in jail.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She believed him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Current Prosecution of Virtual Offenders<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
When people in the United States purchase live-stream viewing of abuse taking place overseas, they are often able to circumvent many mechanisms investigators use to catch offenders in both trafficking and child pornography cases. They become \u201cvirtual offenders\u201d\u2014people active in the abuse of the children without exercising physical control over the victims.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Prosecutors usually charge virtual offenders under federal child pornography statutes, 18 U.S.C. Sections 2251 and 2252. These statutes criminalize the production and receipt, respectively, of child pornography. Section 2251, the production statute, specifically criminalizes coercing a minor to engage in sexually explicit conduct \u201cfor the purpose of transmitting a live visual depiction of such conduct,\u201d language that suggests application to virtual offenders.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Moving Towards More Effectively Addressing Technology-Facilitated Trafficking<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
The problem with punishing virtual offenders under the current statutory regime is their conduct is often more similar to that of traffickers than of child pornographers. Although virtual offenders direct live streams without physically trafficking children,3<\/sup> they do more than receive or produce child pornography. Indeed, the \u201cviewers\u201d are not only viewing a video, but they are also taking an active role in deciding how the children are abused. Their active conduct stands in contrast to how courts have conceptualized child pornographers\u2019 roles\u2014as passive consumers viewing depictions of past abuse or as parties not directly responsible for the victims\u2019 abuse.4<\/sup> The abuse in these cases is not in the past, and the viewers are directly responsible for the abuse they stream\u2014they pay to see it. Live streaming abuse, however, is not directly mentioned in the federal statute prohibiting sex trafficking of children, 18 U.S.C. \u00a7 1591.5<\/sup> The absence of this language makes it unclear whether it is technically proper to charge virtual offenders as traffickers, even though it makes more sense.<\/p>\n\n\n\nSo far, prosecutors have not charged virtual offenders under \u00a7 1591, but they should be able to, particularly because of the sentencing consequences. The disparity in sentencing outcomes between the two statutory regimes reveals why technology-facilitated trafficking should be criminalized under \u00a7 1591\u2014using the current language, or, if that proves unfeasible, by amending the statute to include live streaming offenses. When an offender who purchases a live stream of child sex abuse is prosecuted under the child pornography statutes instead of the human trafficking statute, he can face 20\u201350 years.6<\/sup> If this same offender is charged and convicted under the human trafficking statute, \u00a7 1591, for soliciting a minor to engage in a commercial sex act,7<\/sup> his prison sentence would be set between 10 years and life, depending on the age of the victim(s) involved and whether the victim was exploited by use of force, fraud, or coercion. The wider range on both the low and high ends of the sentence would allow for more flexibility in charging and more nuanced consideration of how active a role these virtual offenders play when they direct the abuse of children from across the globe.<\/p>\n\n\n\nAndrea was ultimately rescued after three months of exploitation at the hands of her uncle and hundreds of virtual offenders around the world. Another girl in Andrea\u2019s uncle\u2019s house escaped and told the authorities. A trafficking case was brought against those in the Philippines who physically trafficked her.\u00a0The same should have been true for the men who abused Andrea virtually.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\nComment<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\nThis article spoke on the way that technology, more specifically live streams, have been used to evolve the role that “viewers” play. Now with the advance of technology they can literally type in the chat what act they want to watch the victims do. That is why the author advocates that when it comes to legal charges, in the U.S, we should adjust the wording within the law so that “viewers” can face a higher sentence than what they are currently receiving. <\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Published in The Human Trafficking Institute By : Zach Bucanan Today, technology enables consumers to live stream TV shows, news, and conversations with loved ones; it also makes possible live streaming abuse of child trafficking victims. Earlier this month, the question of how to stop technology-facilitated child sex trafficking rose all the way to the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":46,"featured_media":6743,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-6742","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-focus"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/desis.osu.edu\/seniorthesis\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6742","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/desis.osu.edu\/seniorthesis\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/desis.osu.edu\/seniorthesis\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/desis.osu.edu\/seniorthesis\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/46"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/desis.osu.edu\/seniorthesis\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6742"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/desis.osu.edu\/seniorthesis\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6742\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6744,"href":"https:\/\/desis.osu.edu\/seniorthesis\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6742\/revisions\/6744"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/desis.osu.edu\/seniorthesis\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6743"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/desis.osu.edu\/seniorthesis\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6742"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/desis.osu.edu\/seniorthesis\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6742"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/desis.osu.edu\/seniorthesis\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6742"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}