Google announced a $3 million grant that will fight modern slavery by giving anti-human trafficking organizations the ability to pool hotlines, data, and resources.  The $3 million dollar grant will go to support the Global Human Trafficking Hotline Network. This network, running between organizations in the USA, Southeast Asia, and Europe, will be the largest data-sharing effort aimed towards the fight against modern-day slavery. Google has given more than $14.5 million to anti-trafficking efforts and is committed as a company to the fight against slavery.

With an estimated 27 million human-trafficked slaves worldwide, Google’s grant brings further awareness and resources to the fight. Human trafficking is defined by the Trafficking Victims Protection Act as the recruitment, transportation, or harboring of people by means of force, deception or coercion. Many of these individuals are trapped in extreme poverty and feel left with little choice. Currently, many nations are working hard to address the issue, but are often working in isolation. The trends and data from Southeast Asia rarely make it back to the US where data can be combined and studied further. The Global hotline will allow countries to standardize data, identify trends, and combine statistics in order to gather a comprehensive picture and develop better tactics to fight the growing issue.

The Polaris Project, Liberty Asia, and La Strada International were jointly awarded the $3 million dollar grant from Google. In a statement from Jacquelline Fuller, director of Google Giving she says, “The bad guys have been using technology in a much more savvy way…We want to enable the good guys to use technology in highly leveraged ways, so they can innovate faster than the opposition.” The grant will go towards supporting travel expenses, building the platforms needed to share data, identifying more hotlines, and data collection.  Organization officials hope to be able to leverage the technology and use it to create additional hotlines in other parts of the world.

Bradley Myles, CEO of the Polaris Project, has seen the success with the National Human Trafficking Hotline they run in the United States. He says, “Hotlines work. Anywhere a victim is, there (should be a) hotline that covers that area.”  By creating a Global Human Trafficking Hotline, the Google grant is another step towards providing help and hope to victims worldwide.

– Amanda Kloeppel

Source: USA Today