Line 145: The new methods of sexual exploitation in digital environments – El Diario Varelense

Line 145: The new modes of sexual practice in digital environments

The Human Trafficking and Exploitation Prosecutor’s Office (Protex) published its report on the analysis of the 1,941 complaints received in 2023 through the toll-free telephone line.

(DIB) “The trend in recent years shows an evolution in the forms of sexual exploitation, from traditional cases in brothels to new methods in digital environments,” concluded the Prosecutor’s Office for Human Trafficking and Espionage (Protex) in their annual report. has analyzed the 1,941 complaints received in 2023 through the toll-free telephone line 145.
Since July 2015, the Office of the Public Prosecutor’s Office of the Special Prosecutor has co-administered Line 145 together with the National Program for the Rescue and Support of Victims of Human Trafficking. The report published this weekend covers the complaints received in the period between January 1 and December 31 last year, in which 859 victims appear to be involved. Cases of sexual exploitation (846) lead the search, followed by labor exploitation (468), possible recruitment or false job offers (180) and disappearances (135).
Then, as explained by the Public Prosecutor’s Office on their “Prosecutions” page, complaints continue for loss of liberty (66), child pornography (23) and possible sale of babies and children (21) . Finally, there are complaints about grooming, harassment of children or adolescents for sexual purposes through an electronic device (19), sexual abuse (18), advertising for sexual offers (13) and movement (13). A further 139 complaints were classified as “other offences”.
The study shows that the Federal jurisdiction to which the largest number of complaints have been forwarded is the City of Buenos Aires (219), followed by Córdoba (76), San Martín (73) and La Plata ( 67). These first categories represent 56.5% of the complaints with a federal referral and at a general level they are the main jurisdictions with the largest number of referrals from 2018, although with some exceptions.
Sexual exploitation has been the type of crime reported in the largest number of cases since 2015 in a stable way, while labor exploitation has been in second place since 2019. Before that year, people were looking for the place that. Since then, the third place has been taken over by complaints related to possible recruitment and false job offers, and in fourth place are complaints related to the disappearance of people.
Noting that there is an evolution in forms of sexual exploitation from traditional brothel issues to digital environments, Protex recalls that this process of “digitization” or “disinfection” goes back several years and specifies that the advancement of technologies that has accelerated as a result of the pandemic has allowed human trafficking and sexual exploitation to find new forms through digital media.
“The change in the dynamics of the spy place occurs in the year 2022, when the use in private homes is ranked first, a trend that continues in the year of analysis of this document,” maintains the attorney general’s office. In this regard, it appears that in 2023, 427 complaints were registered in relation to private homes and 240 referring to brothels. or “whiskerries”. At the Attorney General’s Office we believe it is a priority to understand how practice will evolve in these new digital spaces, which operate in different ways and offer different content (streaming, social networks and platforms with a webcam or personalized tablets) and, in turn, analyze the factors that “They have encouraged this migration of use to digital environments ,” the report reveals.
Of the universe of 1,941 complaints registered in 2023 through Line 145, there are 180 cases where the complaint was related to types of false, dubious and/or illegal job offers.
Of the 859 potential victims of the complaints received in 2023, 427 were identified as cis women, 324 as cis men, and 9 as transgender people. The report shows that the distance between women and men is smaller every year, the report continues.