We all know who Ashton Kutcher is, especially because of his famous shows and movies. But did you also know that besides being a famous actor, he’s also a social worker? His contribution in retrieving victims of human trafficking is remarkable indeed.
Nonprofitable organization Thorn
Both Kutcher and Demi-Moore (ex-wife), have been working in this direction for a very long time now. Around 9 years back they started an organization named Thorn, to save people who were trapped in trafficking, retrieve them, and prevent any further victimization.
In one of the episodes of “The Today Show”, Kutcher shared the contribution made by Thorn. He proudly discussed the strategic planning through which they could save over 6,000 victims of trafficking. They also tracked down 2,000 traffickers in the same duration. The happiness of success was visibly reflected in Kutcher’s face. Thorn made an undoubtedly extraordinary achievement.
What is Thorn?
Interestingly, Thorn and the team have been able to trace a trend in the way victims are captured and sold. The mechanism works somewhat like online shopping where victims are objectified with price tags attached to their images. The team that could anticipate strategies adopted by the traffickers designed digital tools. That is, Thorn worked in a manner that they could counteract the traffickers’ plans.
Kutcher explained how Thorn is working in collaboration with the Government, NGOs, and tech industry. With multiple bodies contributing towards the same purpose, they’re collectively able to design a machinery to combat further victimization of people. The site has listed 20 members from this team which is also called The Thorn Technology Task Force. It largely consists of tech companies that have offered resources, knowledge, time, and support in this social activity. Of these few of the listed names are Adobe, Microsoft, Facebook, Yahoo, and Google.
The organization has also discovered the increasing tendency of online trafficking has made it a common affair on the Internet. In fact, it’s so easily accessible that one doesn’t have to sneakily devise a method to execute it. Also, as a result of this, it has such become a regular event such that even the local classifieds talk about it.
A large amount of data
When Thorn did a survey, in 2015, on the frequency of trafficking through the Internet, it discovered that at least 75% of these victims were auctioned and sold on the Internet at some point or the other. It was after this revelation that Thorn even more actively pursued the local laws to prioritize victims of trafficking for their recovery.
One of the victims named Asia informed Thorn about the way in which online trafficking works. She said that photographs and other details of a person are posted online and are auctioned multiple times each day. Now one can multiply this with the number of people who’s information is uploaded and the number of times a victim is sold. In her own case, she found an online advertisement with the face of a girl that closely resembled her own, attached with a price tag beneath it.
Even though Thorn has witnessed remarkable success in the past, Kutcher’s aim is to eradicate online trafficking completely. It’s clearly not an easy task if one comes to think of it. Polaris, a group working on anti-trafficking has reported approximately 4.5 million victims that are still looking for an opportunity to be rescued from this inhuman practice.
And no doubt, this industry has managed to make a lot of money through this business. In Georgia, according to a study, undercover human trafficking itself has a value close to $290 million. So now let’s hope Kutcher and Thorn’s effort retrieve some of the victims at least.
