NEW YORK, United States — A United States-based Jamaican watchdog group is urging parents of young girls to be on the alert for human traffickers who are using different methods of attracting females for their illicit trade.

Sandra Gipson, the national chairperson of the Diaspora Human Trafficking Awareness Committee, also called on Jamaicans to become more proactive and pay greater attention to the issue of human trafficking, as “traffickers are constantly changing their modus operandi”.

Gipson told a symposium here last week that trafficking of young girls in particular, for sexual exploitation, has morphed into an expanding commercial industry. But it was difficult to detect the signs of those who are involved in the practice because they were adept at disguising their methods.

What traffickers have in common is that they prey on young, impressionable girls, wooing them with promises of a better life in the United States. She encouraged parents to vet carefully such offers and promises before sending their daughters abroad.

Gipson said she did not have figures for the number of Jamaicans who had fallen victim to human trafficking in recent years, but she warned that the girls usually end up suffering trauma and sometimes death, after being forced into prostitution, drug running, and other nefarious activities.

She said the traffickers often dangled generous offers of good jobs, marriage, and a college education in the United States.

“However, many of the victims end up in slave-like conditions and forced labour, situations from which they are usually unable or find it difficult to extricate themselves,” she noted. “In many instances they are forced to repay for the favours that are done on their behalf. ”

Special attention, she said, should be paid to men, including family members, “who are likely to and are bringing undue pressure and influence on the girls”.

The symposium, held under the theme ‘Shatter the Silence’, was organised by the National Council of Negro Women, a non-profit organisation founded in 1935 by educator and government consultant Mary McLeod Bethune .

Its mission is to advance the opportunities and quality of life for African-Americans, their families and their communities. The council said it has enlightened, inspired and connected more than two million women and men around the world.

An estimated 20.3 million people, many of them children, are believed to fall victims of human trafficking across the world annually, according to International Labour Organisation figures.

In the United States alone, an estimated 14,000 to 17,000 people are trafficked into the country yearly.