Social media, particularly Facebook, has greatly impacted the operations of the Center for Search and Investigations for Missing Children (CFSI). CFSI utilizes Facebook to share information about missing children, recruit volunteers, and investigate cases. They are able to recover missing children in the US and other countries through connections made on Facebook. While social media enables child traffickers, CFSI leverages Facebook to spread awareness of missing children and find children faster than would otherwise be possible.

1. Social MediaImpact onMissingChildOrganization
Alexis Stephens
Dian Jordon
2015 SOCI-4324.783 - Political Sociology
SPRING I
University of Texas of the Permian Basin
Essay Topic Lesson 3: Social media (i.e. Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and blogs) have changed
the tight control of media by elites. Research one social or political issue and write an essay on
what influences social media has had on the situation, event, place, issue or elite person or
organization.

2. Social Media Impact on Missing Children Organization 1
Abstract
Answering how social media, in specific, Facebook, impacts the operations of a missing child
organization. This paper includes documentation of child trafficking both in the United States
and several other countries. Discussion is based on one organization’s fight against child
abduction, exploitation, and child trafficking in relation to children who are trafficked within the
sex industry. An attempt is made to show how the use of Facebook impacts one organization
both positively and negatively. Explanations are provided on multiple ways, Center for Search
and Investigations for Missing Children (CFSI) utilizes Facebook to grow their organization but
more specifically the usage in getting missing child cases into the public eye and achieving
found safe on the children.
Keywords: Facebook, CFSI, child trafficking, sex industry

3. Social Media Impact on Missing Children Organization 2
Social media, in particular, Facebook, twitter, Instagram, and Myspace, have greatly
impacted the way people from all walks of life communicate and share with one another. These
types of social media have, over the years since their inception, made it easier for people to keep
in touch with one another. Regarding the use of Facebook alone, it is reported that within a one
year time period, the global user base rose from 200 million to 500 million and somewhere
around 250 million people make use of the social media site on a daily basis. (Schoon and Cain
2011)
Sharing photos can now be done with a few clicks of the mouse button. Keeping up with
family and friends and engaging in ‘chat’ has become just as simple. These social media venues
have also made it easier to reconnect with long lost friends and have even brought lost family
members together again. We also find on such sites the increasing ability to create groups and
advocate or rally other people to join together to fight for different social causes across the globe.
(Lim 2009) Since its inception, Facebook has grown to be worldwide which has made a huge
impact on communications as well as social issues in today’s society. All of which can be seen as
a positives in modern day society.
On the other side of this positivity lies a very large and negative problem that is dark,
demented, unlawful, heart wrenching, and overflowing with negativity and devastation. This
dark side of Facebook as well as other social media sites is not only a problem that is known to
the United States but in many countries across the nation. It is a problem that relates directly to
minor children, a problem that in all purposes denies children of their safety nets and a free and
joyful childhood.
Social media outlets such as Facebook, have become a trading centers in regards to the
exploitation of children, more pointedly, that of the ever growing epidemic of child trafficking.

4. Social Media Impact on Missing Children Organization 3
While most children found within the grips of traffickers are female, this is not a gender specific
problem; male children are also at high risk. According to Mollie Halpern, in a pod cast
interview, a child goes missing every 40 seconds in the United States alone. (Federal Bureau of
Investigations 2011) That is approximately 800,000 children per year or around 2,100 per day.
Many of these children are considered runaways and throw aways. They left home on their own
free will. However, many of those same children did so directly due to being lured away from
the safety of their homes by the very people that then force them into the sex trade industry, or,
child trafficking. The FBI reports that one-third of these children deemed as runaways by law
enforcement, will fall victim to child traffickers. (CFSIMISSING.COM. 2015)
In case after case of missing children, specifically those of the 11 to 16 years of age
group, we find that child traffickers not only make contact with these children on the streets but
also on Facebook and other such social media applications. The traffickers will lure children
through promises of fame and fortune, by pretending to be another child, and will even use their
own like aged children to help lure another child into their clutches. Children of impoverished
families, in some countries are sold by their families and are bought by sex slave traffickers,
others are approached and promised modeling contracts, and still others, those who are listed as
runaways, are taken from the streets to which they run. These are only a very few methods that
human / child traffickers use in order to get children into their grasps and into the tragic life of
being sold for sex.
Many of these children, but not all, who are on the streets and end up in the hands of
child traffickers have lead very hard lives, grown up in severe poverty, been abused and even
abandoned by their families, have drug and or alcohol issues, and have been involved in the
welfare system for most of their lives. Other children on the streets come from poor to middle

5. Social Media Impact on Missing Children Organization 4
class to affluent families who may or may not have a history of abuse. Nearly all have a few
commonalities though. The first is that the majority of these children have free access to social
media sites such as Facebook. Still the most horrific of commonalities are if the child traffickers
get to them they are assured at least some period of time (until recovered) in a life of, drugs,
physical abuse, sexual abuse, exploitation, sexually transmitted diseases including HIV (Decker
et al. 2001), and sadly for some, death at the hands of those exploiting them. These children are
ultimately being denied the innocence’s of their youth as well as their basic human rights to a life
without lifelong consequences paid by them due to what has been done to them by adults in the
world of sexual slavery.
Global
This problem of trafficking children and exploitation of children within the sex for hire industry
is not just a one country problem; it spans the entire globe and affects children from all walks of
life. There is no single country that does not face this growing epidemic, no race, no ethnicity,
and no class of persons is exempted from it. Human or child traffickers will force a child into
sexual slavery if they are from the poorest of poor family, if they are from the wealthiest family,
and any child that falls in the middle. Child traffickers do not play favorites when it comes to
their trade.
According to author, Afroza Anwary (2007), trafficking of children within the sex trade
industry is reportedly a multi-billion dollar industry with around 300,000 children, most of them
female, being forced into working in the brothels of India.
Author, R. Flowers (2001) reports findings on global wide child trafficking to range into
the hundreds of thousands including those being trafficked in Brazil and Canada. In his research
paper he reveals numbers that truly can only be, and by all rights should be viewed as tragic. To

6. Social Media Impact on Missing Children Organization 5
leave these numbers out of this paper would be an injustice to the overall picture of this industry.
Flowers also reports in Brazil alone there are upwards of “500,000 children being used in the sex
industry while in Canada the reported numbers are as great as 200,000.” (Flowers 2001:149)
Looking further into this ever growing global social issue we find more evidence of child
traffickers using the social media website, Facebook, to gain access to children, this time in
Depok, Indonesia. In this case a 14 year old female was approached by an adult male on her
Facebook account. This man smooth talked the child, one thing led to another and soon he had
convinced the child to meet up with him at a local shopping mall. He then had the child meet up
with him again at a later time. She entered the now ‘trusted’ man’s vehicle and was drugged,
beaten, and tortured sexually by this man for around a week before he told her he was selling her
to a brothel in Batam.(Mason 2014) Thankfully this child was recovered before that took place.
Many others have not been so ‘lucky’ and have been found deceased.
Organizational History
In 2009 an organization was founded by Chuck Foreman. Mr. Foreman- Special Operations
veteran, is a highly decorated combat wounded veteran, saw a need that was not being met. That
need was to keep children safe from child abductions, child trafficking, and child exploitation as
well as the recovery of missing children termed as ‘runaways’. Mr. Foreman’s goal was to
specifically target those of the ages 11to16 who had been missing less than 90 days, and to do so
with no charges ever to the parents of these missing children. Children in this age group are
automatically listed as runaways by law enforcement agencies unless there are eye witnesses to
the child being forcibly taken. This is also the age group that is most highly targeted by child

7. Social Media Impact on Missing Children Organization 6
traffickers. In that same regard the families of these children are denied the right to have Amber
Alerts issued for their missing children.
Seeing the need that was presented to him through his first missing child case Mr.
Foreman founded his organization, Center for Search and Investigations for Missing Children
(CFSI). CFSI gained 501(c)(3) non-profit status in 2014 and it may also be mentioned here that
all people working within the organization do so on a volunteer basis.
Adding to this division was the creation of Bikers Urban Response Needed (B.U.R.N.)
and NOMAD, two additional resources for CFSI; all coming together and interacting as one
team with most of those interactions taking place on Facebook. CFSI also has a base of licensed
private investigators who work their cases pro-bono. These private investigators are also
members of Facebook.
CFSI was founded in the state of Texas and from there has grown to include all fifty
states. The realization of the dream to become worldwide was set into action in 2014 with the
additions of multiple countries as well as the first found safe in another country, Australia.
Currently the organization is located in the following countries: Canada, Spain, Belgium,
Australia, United Kingdom, and the Netherlands. CFSI is also currently attempting to build
teams in Amsterdam, Italy, and Brazil. The goal of CFSI is to continue utilizing Facebook in
order to expand to more and more countries until it grows worldwide.
Facebook has been a pillar for this organization. It is on Facebook where the teams in
each state and country blast out thousands of missing child flyers each and every day. Facebook
is highly utilized in most aspects of CFSI; from spotting posts by parents pleading for help in
finding their missing child, to contacting that parent, to the running of private case threads, each

8. Social Media Impact on Missing Children Organization 7
state having their own state page and state communication threads, and the massive sharing of
CFSI’s missing child case flyers.
Facebook offers even more for this organization. The volunteers, advocates, state
coordinators, regional directors and even the board of directors constantly recruit in each state
for additional organizational volunteers to join the fight against missing and exploited children.
Another resource that CFSI uses through Facebook is getting press releases out to many different
media resources such as new stations and newspapers.
Additionally, CFSI utilizes Facebook to blast missing flyer’s to area social groups such as
garage sale groups, trading groups, and others in hopes of generating leads on the location of the
missing child. This social media site is also used to place the flyers on Facebook pages of truck
stops, law enforcement pages, motel and hotel pages, convenience store pages, tow-truck
company pages, bus station pages, taxi service pages, and the list goes on and on. All of these
Facebook pages are postered to in order to get the child’s information and photograph/s out to as
many places as humanly possible in order to recover the child as fast as possible and gain a
found safe! This organization is all about those two words, Found Safe, and Facebook helps
CFSI achieve that status on a daily basis.
On the investigation side of CFSI the private investigators may access a missing child’s
Facebook account in order to view the child’s friend list and to see what they have posted to their
pages recently. This can and often does lead to knowing that the child is at least still alive once
they have gone missing due to the child’s continued posts making on their Facebook page. At
times, friends of missing children will see the CFSI missing flyer posted on Facebook and call
the private investigator on the case in order to give up information on the location of the child.

9. Social Media Impact on Missing Children Organization 8
There are more instances where CFSI utilizes Facebook to help recover missing children,
not only in the United States but in Mexico as well. Crossing borders to rescue a missing child is
something typically left to the forces of for hire mercenaries. It is reported that crossing borders
to recover a missing child from traffickers is hindered by such things as finances and inflexible
government restraints. (Mateo 2014)
However, in November 2014 and again in January 2015, CFSI has been able to recover,
unfunded, from Mexico, two children missing out of the United States. One of the key elements
in these recoveries was a direct result of the involvement of border patrol as well as private
investigators working the cases, again via Facebook.
Conclusion
While social media sites such as Facebook have been and continue to be an ever
increasing avenue for child traffickers to approach children and gain their trust in order to get
children into their grasp, and then forced into the child sex trade industry, these same sites have
also become an avenue of help in finding missing children not only in all fifty states in the
United States but in other countries as well. Center for Search and Investigations for Missing
Children (CFSI) has a proven track record with over 650 children found safe in both the United
States and two countries, including Mexico and Australia, through utilizing Facebook as a
mainstay in getting missing children’s flyers and information out into the public eye. CFSI has
garnered enough attention that the organization has been included in project case studies at the
University of Tennessee as well as the University of Houston. And it all began with one man’s
vision and the utilization of the social media web site, Facebook.

10. Social Media Impact on Missing Children Organization 9
Peer Reviewed Bibliography
Annitto, M. 2011 "Consent, Coercion, and Compassion: Emerging Legal Responses to the
Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Minors. " , Yale Law & Policy Review volume 30 , p.1 – 70
Retrieved February 26, 2015 (http://www.jstor.org/stable/23340058)
This review researches and reports on the legal responses to the sexual exploitation of minor
children within the United States. Further it documents laws and policy in regards to child
trafficking and questions the varying state statutes and opposing opinions on whether a child
found in sex trade acts are criminals or victims.
Anwary, A. 2009 "Anti-Sex Trafficking Movement of Bangladesh and the Theories of
Transnational Social Movements. " , Social Thought & Research volume 28 , p.109 – 142
Retrieved February 27, 2015 (http://www.jstor.org/stable/23252123)
Author A. Anwary presents information regarding the global problem of human trafficking and
includes dollar amounts as well as numbers pertaining to how many children fall victim to child
trafficking. His focus is within India and pertains to anti-trafficking. Anwary’s report is relevant
to this essay due to his findings on numbers of children trafficked as well as dollar amounts
gained by the traffickers in Asian countries.
Decker, M., H. McCauley, D. Phuengsamran, S. Janyam, and Jay. Silverman. 2011. "Sex
trafficking, sexual risk, sexually transmitted infection and reproductive health among female sex
workers in Thailand. " , Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health volume 65 (4) , p.334 –
339 Retrieved February 27, 2015 (http://www.jstor.org/stable/41150977)
This group of authors’ reports their research findings of the number of sexually transmitted
diseases found in children who are being used within by child traffickers in the sexual based

11. Social Media Impact on Missing Children Organization 10
industry. They collected the data or statistics on their findings through a national sample of
female sex workers within Thailand.
Flowers, R. 2001."The Sex Trade Industry's Worldwide Exploitation of Children. " , Annals of
the American Academy of Political and Social Science volume 575 , p.147 – 157 Retrieved
February 27, 2015 (http://www.jstor.org/stable/1049185)
This article discusses the issues of worldwide sexual exploitation of minor children documenting
the daily atrocities that they endure when in the hands of child traffickers. It includes topics such
as abuse and sexually transmitted disease as well as other lifelong suffrage of these children.
Author, R. Flowers also presents statements pertaining to the number of minor children who are
being trafficked in the sex industry in other countries.
Lim, N. 2009 "Novel or Novice: Exploring the Contextual Realities of Youth Political
Participation in the Age of Social Media. " , Philippine Sociological Review volume 57 , p.61 –
78 Retrieved February 20, 2015 (http://www.jstor.org/stable/23898344)
This peer reviewed article explores the use of social media outlets and the use thereof by the
youth in today’s society. Author Niel Lim reports on his research findings on internet usage in
regards to youth and political stances and how the internet intertwines with social movements.
This article relates to this essay in that it shows the ever increasing use of social media sites to
rally groups for social causes.
Schoon, E. and Cindy Cain. 2011"Facebook's Boundaries. " , Contexts volume 10 (2 ) , p.70 – 71
Retrieved February 28, 2015 (http://www.jstor.org/stable/41960213)
This is a short, peer reviewed paper discussing the social media website, Facebook, which goes
into some detail on the user population explosion since its inception to the world. This article’s

12. Social Media Impact on Missing Children Organization 11
information goes to show how Facebook user numbers lend over to the help of mass
communication among the United States and differing countries.
Additional References
CFSIMISSING.COM. 2015. 2015. "Who We Are". Retrieved February 17, 2015
(http://cfsimissing.com/Who_We_Are_.html)
Federal Bureau of Investigations. 2011 "FBI and the National Center for Missing & Exploited
Children". Audio Podcast. Retrieved February 23, 2015
http://www.fbi.gov/news/podcasts/inside/inside_071211.mp3/view
Mason, M. 2014 "Facebook Sex Trafficking: Social Network Used To Kidnap Indonesian Girls".
Retrieved February 27, 2015 (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/29/facebook-sex-
trafficking-_n_2036627.html)
Mateo. 2014 "Operation Underground Railroad (OUR) - A Vanguard in the Fight Against Child
Trafficking". Retrieved February 26 , 2015 (http://endslaverynow.org/blog/operation-
underground-railroad-our-OUR)