Online teenage sexual exploitation will continue to grow unless the government steps up efforts to nab predators in cyberspace, social workers charged Monday, and they urged authorities to set up a task force to tackle the issue. According to the Garden of Hope Foundation, over 200 teenage girls enter the sex industry each year through someone they meet online, most often in July and August when many young people are looking for high-paying summer jobs. The girls usually meet 'scouts' who pose as agents for modeling or advertising companies in chat rooms or online game sites. 'The scouts' most frequent tactic is to tell the girls how easy the job is and that sexual intercourse with the client is not mandatory. The scout is usually another girl who claims to have made a windfall by working for the company, ' said foundation executive director Chi Hui-jung. The scout may also offer false legal information such as saying that it is not a crime for a minor to work as a stripper and that both the police and organized crime gangs will protect them. The girls are also often told that they are free to leave the job whenever they want to and can handpick their customers, Chi said. Social worker Cheng Hsin-yu, who went undercover in 2009 posing as a teenage girl online, said most of the scouts prefer to talk to their victims via instant messenger because its highly secured and not easily traced. A seven-month study done by End Children Prostitution, Child Pornography & Trafficking of Children for Sexual Purposes (ECPAT) showed that on the frequency of pop-up warnings for some designated keywords, such as 'sex' and 'minor' on search engines, discovered that 10,312,699 such warnings were given in Taiwan in 2008. The figure doubled last year to 22,463,771, said Lee Li-feng, secretary-general for ECPAT Taiwan. 'This means that online sexual predators or crime rings are becoming more active and eager to find their next prey,' she said. The government is not unaware of the issue, but the social activists contend it is dragging its feet because the Internet does not fall under any agency's jurisdiction. 'Each time I have meetings with government officials, they all say they know about the issue but don't have the authority to tackle it. It is very discouraging,' Lee said. ECPAT Taiwan recommended that a cross-agency committee be set up under the Executive Yuan to monitor the Internet and identify suspicious individuals. 'If the government continues to ignore the issue, then it will be an accomplice to the predators by putting more girls in harm's way, ' Chi said. 