The majority of online recruitment in active sex trafficking cases last year occurred on Facebook, according to a new report from the Human Trafficking Institute. 

According to the 2020 Federal Human Trafficking Report, 59 percent of all online sex trafficking recruitment in active cases occurred on Facebook. That number rose to 65 percent in active cases involving children.

The internet was the most common recruitment ground for human traffickers last year, making up 41 percent of active cases in 2020 - a rising trend since 2000.

'The internet has become the dominant tool that traffickers use to recruit victims, and they often recruit them on a number of very common social networking websites,' Human Trafficking Institute CEO Victor Boutros told CBSN on Wednesday.

'Facebook overwhelmingly is used by traffickers to recruit victims in active sex trafficking cases.'   

'Surprisingly, despite Facebook's reputation as a less popular platform among teenagers, it was a more common platform for recruiting child victims than adult victims in 2020 active sex trafficking cases,' the report says.

'In fact, 65 percent (68) of child victims recruited on social media were recruited through Facebook - compared to just 36 percent (10) of adults.'

Data presented in the report showed that 30 percent of all victims in the United States identified in federal sex trafficking cases in the past two decades - since 2000 - were recruited online.