The Problem

India is the epicenter of human trafficking – Every 4 minutes, an innocent girl is kidnapped, bound, stripped of her virginity and forced into a life of prostitution. The United Nations has deemed India the most dangerous place in the world to be a girl. With 150,000 children per year sold into slavery, India now has 2-3 million prostitutes.

Rapid Growth

The sex trafficking trade is expanding every day. The secretive nature of operations means numbers are difficult to estimate. Women are silenced and authorities are not paying attention. Many experts have expressed that trafficking in India is possibly triple to what the UN is reporting.

Why is this happening?

One third of the country live below the poverty line, deprived and uneducated. With no enforcement of laws and minimal government involvement, traffickers see the poor as low risk. People willing to pay money for commercial sex create a huge market of traffickers cashing in on exploitation. Brothel owners and pimps are rarely prosecuted, grossly excelling the issue.

What I am doing.

I will be traveling to Nepal with a team of 20 volunteers from Google and Salesforce in May to participate in an incredible volunteer opportunity through Effect.org to build solutions for the issue of human trafficking.

Team members will learn the scope of the problem through interactive involvement with nonprofits, local leaders and lawmakers of anti-human trafficking. Each team member will learn hands on about human trafficking in three categories: prevention, care of prostitutes and rescuing.

The team's primary project is to leverage each individual's technical skills during a hackathon, to come together, share ideas, form teams, build and or design products and launch our idea. Each team will present their idea, product or design at the end to a panel of local professionals. The theme of the hackathon is, “How Technology Can End Human Trafficking.”

Effect.org has partnered with non profits who will be joining our expedition. These non profits will outline their biggest challenges, and participants efforts during the hackathon will be dedicated to solving their problems. Non profits will be given grants from Effect.org to help implement the solution of their choosing after the expedition.

How you can help.

I need to raise £5,000 by April 1st to take part in this amazing initiative. With your help, I will travel to Nepal to help tackle the issue of Human Trafficking with Effect.org. Help me empower women and communities to end this epidemic. Your donation will mean so much.