Locating sex-trafficked children

Impact Study

A non-profit organization in the United States doubled the localization and recoveries of sex-trafficked children

Challenge

A time-consuming and challenging job

Human trafficking is prevalent across the United States, and the victims are often teenagers and young children.

4theONE is a non-profit organization with about 20 volunteers dedicated to locating and recovering missing and exploited children and teens. Their team consists of skilled professionals, including licensed private investigators and specially trained volunteers with backgrounds in law enforcement, cyber forensics, education, social services, mental health, and medical fields.

Since 2015 they have helped law enforcement with 350 recoveries across the US and reunited many children with their families.

After several years of gathering information for their cases, they have collected a massive amount of data with thousands of number plates, pictures, social media profiles, addresses, phone numbers, and aliases. To look through all that information every time they start a new case is extremely time-consuming and challenging.

Before working with Paliscope, they would spend days gathering information about a case before they had relevant information about the missing child's location. Now, they can sometimes have the information they need in just 15 minutes.

Unfortunately, there is a stigma in the US that a young runaway is just a kid acting out. So if there are no obvious signs of kidnapping or violence, the case gets a low priority. That’s where 4theONE comes in to speed up the process and hand over proof of trafficking to law enforcement so they can quickly locate the children and make an arrest.

In the horrible business of child sex trafficking, every second saved counts for the exploited child.

Solution

Face recognition and searchable data to speed up the process

There is an illusion that traffickers are criminals and easy to spot by just looking at them. However, that’s far away from the truth. Sure, the traffickers could be gang members, although many times, they are just someone you would not suspect: a teacher, a classmate, or even a mother.

The trafficker often contacts children through social media or gaming platforms and builds a relationship where the child trusts and even has romantic feelings for their perpetrator.

Therefore, many investigations regarding locating young children are made by gathering information on social media platforms. With YOSE, 4theONE can import all the information they find on social media and other sources and make it searchable.

Using YOSE´s face recognition feature, the team at 4theONE searches through their massive database, where they have escort ads and previous cases stored, to see if they can find a connection and a clue to where they should look. When YOSE finds a link: it might be a person, a number plate, or any information that can be related, they get notified directly.

Instead of having all the information they find in word documents and spreadsheets, 4theONE uses Discovry to gather and organize their data. With Discovry, they always have a clear view of all the cases they are working on, making it easier to connect the dots. In addition, Discovry automatically creates a case report, ready to be handed over to law enforcement to make an arrest quickly.

Sex trafficking is the fastest-growing business of organized crimes, and often the victims are small children and teenagers. Since 2015 4theONE has helped law enforcement to locate and recover sex-trafficked children. Paliscope has made a massive difference for us; with their help, we could go from 40 recoveries per year to 95.”

Dennis, Executive director of 4theONE

Result

4theONE went from 40 to 95 recoveries of sex-trafficked children every year

Before using Discovry and YOSE, 4theONE made about 40 recoveries per year. Today, they have more than doubled the speed of the process; last year, they made 95 recoveries. They are one of the first organizations to try our newest feature, geo-analytics, which they are using to look at hotels and other locations where a lot of trafficking is happening.

We are proud to support 4theONE in their efforts to recover sex-trafficked children. Each and every ONE!