Cyber Law Reconstruction in Preventing Human Trafficking Recruitment Through Digital Manipulation (Grooming) Based on the Value of Justice

Abstract

The development of information and communication technology in the digital era has created disruptions across various dimensions of life, including the modus operandi of transnational crimes. Human Trafficking (TPPO) which traditionally relied on physical recruitment has now mutated into cyberspace through digital manipulation techniques or grooming. This method is highly dangerous because perpetrators use fake identities, social engineering, and fictitious job offers or romantic relationships to build trust, isolate, and psychologically exploit victims before ultimately trapping them within human trafficking syndicates. Unfortunately, Indonesia’s positive legal regime, both the Human Trafficking Law and the Electronic Information and Transactions (ITE) Law, still contains a normative vacuum in addressing this early stage of manipulative recruitment, considering that psychological engineering often creates an illusion of victim consent that obscures the element of coercion within the criminal act. This study aims to analyze the anatomy of human trafficking recruitment through digital grooming, evaluate the weaknesses of existing cyber regulations, and formulate a cyber law reconstruction based on substantive justice values. The method used is normative (doctrinal) legal research employing both a statutory approach and a conceptual approach. The research findings emphasize the need to deconstruct the conventional understanding of the element of “threats of violence or coercion” in the Human Trafficking Law so that it is expanded to include psychological coercion through digital manipulation in cyberspace. A justice-based cyber law reconstruction requires the specific criminalization of grooming as a preparatory or initial offense of human trafficking, a shift in the burden of proof in favor of victims, and the imposition of legal responsibility (duty of care) on digital platforms. Through this reconstruction, the law functions not only as a reactive punitive instrument but also as a preventive shield that protects human dignity and restores the imbalance of power relations between cybercrime syndicates and vulnerable communities in accordance with the values of Social Justice.