codefordenver/projects

Project around Human Trafficking

Opened this issue · 9 comments

wdoug commented

Why This Project

Human trafficking (aka Slavery) is a horrific human rights abuse. Denver is a major hub for human trafficking. Let's do something about it.

Here are a couple facts:

"Federal authorities estimate there could be up to 2,000 child sex trafficking victims in Colorado and Wyoming, each of whom can make as much as $100,000 for a pimp, the head of the FBI’s Denver office said Tuesday.
...
“There is a true weakness in Colorado’s law that none of these charges carry with them the promise of prison,” he said. “These folks could be probation-eligible or receive a community corrections sentence instead of being locked up.”
...
'Human trafficking is alive and well in Denver,' Mitch Morrissey, Denver’s district attorney, said at the news conference."

-- Colorado officers, FBI rescued 20 kids, arrested 7 pimps in sex trafficking operation

Here's some facts from the Polaris Project's website:

"- The International Labour Organization estimates that there are 20.9 million victims of human trafficking globally.

  • 68% of them are trapped in forced labor.
  • 26% of them are children.
  • 55% are women and girls.
    • The International Labor Organization estimates that forced labor and human trafficking is a $150 billion industry worldwide.
    • The U.S. Department of Labor has identified 136 goods from 74 countries made by forced and child labor.
    • In 2015, an estimated 1 out of 5 endangered runaways reported to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children were likely child sex trafficking victims.
  • Of those, 74% were in the care of social services or foster care when they ran.
    • There is no official estimate of the total number of human trafficking victims in the U.S. Polaris estimates that the total number of victims nationally reaches into the hundreds of thousands when estimates of both adults and minors and sex trafficking and labor trafficking are aggregated."

Why Code for Denver

We might be able to create an infographic to help inform people about the issue, or maybe help create a tool, or suggest a technology that nonprofits working in the space could benefit from.

Potential Partners

Potential Future Opportunities

Unsure at this time

wdoug commented

Maybe an infographic would be a good smaller initial project at this point.

crisdb commented

I haven't made an info graphic in a long time. I would enjoy working on that.

wdoug commented

Things of interest:

sbasu8023 commented

This is a serious humanitarian issue. Thankfully organization like DARPA is playing important role to help investigators find the online perpetrators of those crimes. Yes ! making data accessible.

https://www.defense.gov/News/Article/Article/1041509/darpa-program-helps-to-fight-human-trafficking/
http://deepdive.stanford.edu/showcase/memex
https://www.aaai.org/ocs/index.php/SSS/SSS10/paper/viewFile/1155/1341

wdoug commented

This could be a good source of data: https://www.globalslaveryindex.org/

sbasu8023 commented
hello-stephwang commented

Hi! I volunteer for a local Denver non-profit, alightnet.org, who connect human trafficking survivors to lawyers through technology. I recently found out about Designing for Good Grant (designingforgood.com) and I want to create a video that incorporates infographics regarding human trafficking. If granted, the grant goes directly to the non-profit. I'd love to bounce ideas. There's a tight deadline of Jan 21 for video submission. Thanks!