Chasing shadows: can technology save the slaves it snared?

By Kieran Guilbert

LONDON, June 21 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – For Filipina teenager Ruby, a Facebook message offering a job in a cyber cafe across the country seemed too good to be true.

It was.

Days later, the 16-year-old orphan was dragged in front of a webcam by her new employers and forced to perform sex acts for clients – becoming another captive in the growing global slave trade to be lured, trapped and abused through technology.