Everyone is two-faced. Like Dr. Hyde and Mr. Jekyll, people display a different personas, specifically in the online world. “Catfishing” is the term used for a person who poses online as someone else in order to manipulate and take advantage of their victims emotionally, financially, or even physically for their own personal gain.

   This is how predators of sex trafficking get their prey to leave the safety of their home and fall into their trap by promising them a intimate or friendly relationship. Human trafficking is a multi-billion dollar world wide criminal industry. Globally, nearly 21 million people are victims of human trafficking, according to the United Nation’s International Labour Organization.

   The motives vary from doing it for entertainment, to bully, or attempting to meet and harm their victims. According to the InternetPredatorStatstics.com each year internet predators commit more than 100 murders, 16,000 abductions, and 3 thousand rapes.

   One of the most common reasons why people catfish is because they don’t feel confident in who they are because of other people’s posts or being bullied themselves. They change themselves online to meet the worlds standards and feel love and acceptance. 

   Emily Roberts, an 11th grader shared a story of her friend who was catfished for a year and a half. They met on Facebook and the man advertised himself as a tall, dark and handsome 30 year old. Eventually they planned to meet and she terrifyingly learned that she’d been talking to a 60 year old man. After she tried breaking it off, he refused to leave her alone and pushed her to change all of her contact information. Fortunately, afterwards he never tried to contact her again.

   People, especially the younger generation, are easily convinced by strangers online as they have a false sense of reality and low standards. The victims create a distorted feeling of trust. “Often, people will consider their online ‘friends’ and connections much closer to them than they really are,” explains L. Gordon Brewer, a therapist who specializes in working with individuals.

   “It can take just 18 minutes for some predators to arrange to meet their victim,” said Professor Nuria Lorenzo-Dus, also a director of the OGC (Online Grooming Communication) project. CBS news website states, “Today, thousands of false Facebook profiles are established every week, which are merely links to outside websites featuring women and men for sale.” It only takes 30 seconds to make a Facebook account.

   Holly Austin Smith, victim of catfishing, was persuaded at age 14 by a man she thought she trusted and loved to run away from home and was forced into child trafficking. The man was a menacing and manipulative pimp. Fortunately, an officer on the street recognized her as an under age and the pimp was arrested and sent to jail. She shares to the police how he took his time getting to know her and analyzed her troubles. She describes how the road to healing was very difficult and long as well as her experiences in a book called Walking Prey. 

It’s very important to watch for signs and to be careful of the dangers in the online world. Do not accept friend requests from people you do not know and allow only your friends and family to have access to your photos which can easily be changed in the settings of your account. When a stranger begins talking and even flirting with you, asking inappropriate or personal questions you can easily block them. Don’t not give out personal information to strangers. Tell you’re friends to be cautious of strangers. Be wary of what lies in the online world.