Meet BettyPhoto - “Remembering opens old scars” by Elisa R. Baralt, Flickr,CC - non-comm, attribution, non-derivs

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She's a friend of a friend on Facebook.

She's 22 and has 5,000 friends on Facebook, and more than 800 subscribers!

Photo - “entrust” by pierofix, Flickr,CC - non-comm, attribution, non-derivs

The truth is, I was intrigued. Betty's hard to know because there is hardly any pictures of her. Her profile only says she lives in Morelos, Mexico. Since it's public, I could see that she started using Facebook a few months ago, and doesn't post much. But 5,000 friends? I sent a friend request too.

Photo - “Let's glow among the greys” by Elisa R. Baralt, Flickr,CC – non-co mm, attribution, non-derivs

4Photo by danny.hammontree, Flickr, Some rights reserved

Luckily, she added me. Although not very active, when she posts to her wall she writes about politics (she has good criteria), her city,

her boss, work and other things.

Everyone likes her posts. She's a lovely person, wishing everyone a good day, sends hugs and kisses. The truth is that she's such a sweetheart, we watch out for her and give her advice.. (Really, it's not a good idea to say you're taking off early from work on your Facebook.)

Photo - “Black and White” by Elisa R. Baralt, Flickr,CC - non-comm, attribution, non-derivs

Photo by mallix, from Flickr,Some rights reserved

Betty is so popular among her friends that the other day when she asked who would follow her on Twitter if she decided to open an account, she got 72 “likes” and more than 100 comments – in the blink of an eye! Needless to say, she's now on Twitter.

7Photo by :jovian:, Flickr,Some rights reserved

Something I like about Betty is that she knows how to take care of herself even though she seems so trusting. When a guy posted this awful comment, she told us that she did not tolerate violence on her wall and blocked him. We all supported her and congratulated her for having booted the bastard!

8Photo by Collin Key - away again,Flickr, Some rights reserved

We started chatting via inbox, and I asked her, why do you have a public profile, that's why you get jerks like that. She told me it's exactly because of that. She opened her account in

March, but did not enjoy it so much and abandoned it for awhile. In August she was so surprised to see she had more than 1,000 friend requests. So she started to use it more. And now three months later she is getting 2,000 to 2,500 requests a month, mostly from

Mexico.

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Photo by Chris JL , Flickr, Some rights reserved

Did you know that Mexico ranks fifth worldwide in the use of Facebook?

She also told me that over 70% of contacts are men.

They invite her out for coffee, to parties and even job offers. She says she never accepts because you never know who people really are on the internet.

10Photo by Βethan, FlickrSome rights reserved

The job offers are always to be a model or hostess, most from a neighboring town called Cuautla.

She says she always wanted to be a model .... And the job offers are constant, even insistent, there are even promises of work abroad.

But, as I said, Betty knows how to take care of herself and all these invitations are weird. She thinks its all about trafficking

of women.Photo - “Brown Eyes” by Elisa R. Baralt, Flickr,CC - non-comm, attribution, non-derivs

12Photo by ViaMoi , Flickr,Some rights reserved by

Many of us do not know or don't understand what is happening. There are so many ways girls are tricked into trafficking. In Mexico, we have a law that

sanctions human trafficking, but if girls go of their “own will”, it's inapplicable. And Facebook is an excellent mechanism to reach out to the girls

Experts here say a handler takes less than 4 days via Face to convince a girl to go voluntarily to meet up with him. Afterwards she's either sweet-talked or

kidnapped, but she's gone.

There are many ways to deceive - making friends and talking girls up until their trust is won. Other times it is the lure and urgent necessity of a job – and on Facebook girls are invited to be models, hostesses, assistants, nannies, etc.

13Photo by Thomas Hawk, Flickr,Some rights reserved

Teresa Ulloa, director of the Coalition Against Trafficking in Women and Girls in Latin America and Caribbean (CATWLAC), says that in Mexico 50% of children, men and women victims of trafficking for sexual exploitation were contacted and prepped through the Internet, especially on networks such as Facebook.

"Traffickers and pimps don't have to bother to have personal contact with their victims in order to gain their trust, make them fall in love with them, and convince them to leave their homes – full of illusions about going to meet the love of their life.”

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Photo by guano, Flickr, Some rights reserved

In Mexico, the problem is even more severe due to drug trafficking. Apart from sexual and labor exploitation, human trafficking feeds the drug trade by providing “hawks”, hitmen, and mules for drug transport. Trafficking is said to be Mexico's second biggest money maker, right after the drug trade itself.

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So, that's why Betty leaves her profile completely public. She's trying to understand how all this is facilitated by Facebook. She's become an internet activist, and works on the prevention of violence, spreading the word among youth and children – and to her friends on Facebook – about how to be safe.

And she's part of Take Back the Tech!

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www.takebackthetech.net