child trafficking

Ruth Jacobs Speaks on Social Networks: The Good, The Bad and The Horrifying

social network station

Published on The Social Network Station – 7 October 2013

What was your most astonishing experience on a social network?

The most horrific was discovering what was very obviously a large interconnected group of child sex abusers on Facebook. Being aware of Facebook’s inadequate policies and procedures, I reported this to law enforcement instead – the Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA) in the UK… I don’t believe this will ever leave me, and I doubt I will ever know what happened to those children, if they were saved, if the abusers were jailed, or even if anything was done at all. I only know I did what I could to reach the relevant authority, then I had no further choice but to leave it in their hands. Read the full article on The Social Network Station here.

In the Booth with Ruth – Holly Austin Smith, Survivor of Child Trafficking and Anti-Human Trafficking Advocate, Speaker and Author

“I was blown away…there was a name for what had happened to them – what had happened to me – human trafficking. Sex Trafficking… For nearly twenty years, I carried around this shameful secret about my past, a secret which led me to believe that I was dirty, that I was damaged goods. And it was a lie all along. I wished I had known that I was not unworthy. I was a survivor. I was a survivor of human trafficking.” Holly Austin Smith, child trafficking survivor and anti-human trafficking advocate, speaker and author, shares her story.

Ruth Jacobs's avatarRuth Jacobs

Holly Smith

How did you become involved in the movement against sex trafficking and sexual exploitation?

It was on a Friday or Saturday night in 2009 that I found myself home alone with the television remote. Ben, my fiancé, was out with a friend, and I was pouring wine and baking brownies to celebrate having the apartment to myself. I’d been working long hours at my full-time job, and I needed a night in.

I flopped on the couch and flipped through television channels. Maybe I watched a movie or a couple of sitcoms before coming across a documentary about human trafficking overseas. I can’t remember which station it was on (possibly HBO), but it was about this woman who was a survivor of human trafficking (in India, I think), and she worked to rescue other young girls from the local brothels.

There was one girl in particular who was being sold…

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