Experts: Minors, migrants more vulnerable to human trafficking amid pandemic
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Washington, Mar 11 (efe-epa).- The coronavirus pandemic has made minors and immigrants increasingly vulnerable to human trafficking, experts warned Thursday in an online panel discussion organized by the Inter-American Development Bank.
“Boys and girls are at serious risk of becoming victims of trafficking via the Internet. They make up 31 percent of all victims recruited via social media and 24 percent of victims recruited through classified ads,” said Jessica Bedoya, the IDB’s chief of staff and executive advisor of the office of the presidency.
She said during her participation in the “Second Technical Dialogue on Trafficking in Persons in Latin America and the Caribbean,” a virtual gathering that brought together officials and experts from Colombia, the United States, Israel, Mexico, the Dominican Republic and other countries, that in most regions of the world immigrants “account for a high percentage of the victims” of that crime.