Houston Woman Sues Facebook Claiming She Was Sex Trafficked

HOUSTON -- A Houston woman has filed a lawsuit against Facebook claiming the social media giant provides a gateway for sexual predators to coerce young girls and children into becoming sex trafficking victims.

The case, which was filed Monday in state district court in Harris County, is seeking $10,000 in damages and alleges that Facebook as well as Backpage.com benefited from sexual exploitation of the sex trafficking victim, known in the lawsuit as Jane Doe.

According to the lawsuit, the victim was a Facebook user in 2012 when she was 15-years-old. That same year, she accepted a friend request from someone she didn't know, who she shared common friends.

The lawsuit states that this Facebook friend intentionally targeted Jane Doe by complimenting her looks, telling her she was pretty enough to be a model, and making false promises regarding financial security and a better life through modeling.

Not long after this online encounter, Jane Doe had an argument with her mother and shared this incident with her new Facebook friend, who promptly offered a her modeling job.

According to the lawsuit, the Facebook friend told Jane Doe she could make enough money modeling to pay the rent on her own apartment.

The Facebook friend offered to pick her up and so they could talk about this disagreement with her mother, the lawsuit alleges.

Jane Doe was picked up by her new friend, and within just a few hours she’d been exploited with sexually suggestive photos of her posted on the Backpage.com website. She was also raped, beaten and eventually forced into sex trafficking.

“This courageous survivor fought back to rebuild her life. With the help of Chapter 98 protection, we believe trafficking survivors in Texas can expose and hold accountable businesses such as Facebook, Inc. that benefit from these crimes of exploitation,” said Annie McAdams, one of the attorney’s representing Jane Doe.

According to the petition, Facebook “has continually been used to facilitate human trafficking by allowing sex traffickers an unrestricted platform to stalk, exploit, recruit, groom, recruit, and extort children into the sex trade.

Facebook not only provides an unrestricted platform for these sex traffickers to target children, but it also cloaks the traffickers with credibility, the lawsuit alleges.

“We believe Facebook has an obligation to safeguard and to warn its users, both through its online platform and otherwise, of the dangers of human traffickers using Facebook as a tool to entrap and enslave children into sex trafficking,” said David E Harris, of Sico Hoelscher Harris LLP.

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