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27 Trends Org. Crime 1 (2024)

handle is hein.journals/trndorgc27 and id is 1 raw text is: Trends in Organized Crime (2024) 27:1-9 https://doi.org/l 0.1007/si12117-024-09526-4 Human trafficking, sexual exploitation and digital technologies Xavier L'Hoiry' • Alessandro Moretti2 - Georgios A. Antonopoulos3 Accepted: 24 January 2024 / Published online: 1 February 2024 ©The Author(s) 2024 Abstract This is the introduction to the special issue on 'human trafficking, sexual exploita- tion and digital technologies'. This special issue contributes to the knowledge base by bringing together four articles that focus on the use of online platforms by hu- man traffickers for the purposes of commercial sexual exploitation. In doing so, this special issue explores the affordances of online platforms to human traffickers, the challenges faced by law enforcement and other actors seeking to intervene in hu- man trafficking in the digital age, and perhaps pathways towards overcoming these challenges in the future. Keywords Human trafficking • Modern slavery • Sexual exploitation • Digital technologies - Organized crime The considerable harms of human trafficking, modern slavery and commercial sexual exploitation are widely recognised, and this area of offending and victim vulnerabil- ity has thus become a priority for the vast majority of policing and criminal justice agencies across the world (see HM Government 2023, and others). Although human trafficking and modern slavery are not new phenomena, over the past decade such Xavier L'Hoiry x.lhoiry@sheffield.ac.uk Alessandro Moretti almo@soc.ku.dk Georgios A. Antonopoulos georgios.antonopoulos@northumbria.ac.uk Department of Sociological Studies, University of Sheffield, The Wave, 2 Witham Road, Sheffield S10 2AH, UK 2 Department of Sociology, University of Copenhagen, Oster Farimagsgade 5, Kobenhavn K 1014, Denmark 3 Department of Social Sciences, Northumbria University, Newcastle NEl 8ST, UK Springer