Big data has always proved useful and currently, it is being applauded for something remarkable which is to eradicate the worldwide problem of human trafficking. Apart from this, it has also played a vital role in eradicating food wastages, reducing fraud and cyberattacks, urban planning disruption, and transforming the healthcare industry through machine learning.
Detection and prevention of human trafficking do not meet the mark and in fact, have failed. This is because those at the helm of the exploitation game are still winning by luring mostly women and children into domestic bondage with the promise of money, education, and a “better life.”
Human trafficking has been described as a pandemicâ – a terrible human rights violation that is not only a crime in and of itself, but generally leads to more abuse and crime, like enslavement, sexual violence, and physical violence. Human trafficking is one of the most significant human rights violations of the twenty-first century due to sex trafficking and commercial sexual exploitation which are part of a growing worldwide phenomenon of modern slavery that affects communities globally.
According to UNICEF, there are approximately 21 million trafficked people in the world today, including 5.5 million children. Global Slavery Index has stated that India has an estimate of 18.3 million slaves, and every year, approximately 200,000 Indian children are tricked, kidnapped, or pressurized into slavery. There was an increase in the human trafficking cases in Thailand in 2018, with roughly 60% of those rescued being women, most of whom were trafficked for the seafood industry or the sex trade. The United States, which many regards as highly developed and thus immune to such heinous human rights violations, was named one of the world’s worst places for human trafficking in 2018, alongside the Philippines and Mexico.
With big data, governments and organizations globally may be able to make a real difference in putting an end to all of that suffering.
Disruptive technology is being utilized by the teams EPIC (Edelman Predictive Intelligence Centre) and STT (STOP THE TRAFFIK) to find the whereabouts of human trafficking and end international labor trafficking. The initiative is trying to target the recruitment stage of trafficking operations by understanding the exact way in which it takes place by collaborating with different non-governmental organizations to analyze collected data and combines it with open-source data. Using Big data helps the operation to identify the trafficking hotspots and concurrently launches digital awareness campaigns in those areas, helping potential victims and the general public in recognizing warning signs and, hopefully, anticipate what is happening before it occurs.
The collected data has revealed that handbags and smartphones are being gifted frequently to those being recruited in the hopes of gaining trust. With the help of this information, it will be easier for local and global law enforcement to discover the culprits involved in such activities. Another way is to create geo-targeted campaigns, as well as a search tool to indicate when those keywords are used in digital communications.
Other non-profit organizations that use big data to identify human traffickers and their victims include the GEN (Global Emancipation Network) and the NCMEC (National Center For Missing and Exploited Children). GEN and NCMEC have recognized 989 individual victims and culprits using Minerva and are now tracking 22,000 more. How? Minerva can identify immediately by tracking down and analyzing phone numbers associated with online advertisements and probing through difficult-to-search data sets for finding information. This is more effective since when people start searching it may take even years to identify such information.
People who are concerned about protecting their private activities and digital interactions will strongly object to the gathering of information and possible violations of privacy. For businesses, reputation management will be a major concern, as will the right to personal privacy for individuals. There is a huge responsibility while accessing such data and hopefully, access to this type of technology is only used by people fighting for change on behalf of those who are too vulnerable to do so themselves.
Big data analysis is safe only when they fall in the right hands such as non-profit organizations and businesses looking out to make a positive impact on the world by stopping further instances of human trafficking – and if there is a checkpoint for them such as first passing a lengthy and complicated application or interview process. However, if big data analysis technologies fall into the hands of the wrong people, such as traffickers or businesses and government agencies looking to uncover other types of personal information, the situation has to be reevaluated.
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