Hollywood actor Ashton Kutcher recently made an emotional speech while talking about child sex slavery or “modern slavery” at a US senate in Washington. The actor, who is also a known tech investor, urged the government to support development of new technology to put a control over online sex trafficking.
The “Two and a Half Men” actor is the chairperson of Thorn, a non-profit organisation that has created technologies to help identify abuse victims. When Ashton spoke about what his foundation Thorn: Digital Defenders of Children does, he was literally in tears.
"I've been on FBI raids where I've seen things that no person should ever see.I've seen video content of a child that is the same age as mine being raped by an American man that was a sex tourist in Cambodia. And this child was so conditioned by her environment that she thought she was engaging in play,”an emotional Ashton said.
The 39- year-old actor went on to narrate a tragic incident about a young girl who was sexually abused.
He said, “ "I've been on the other end of a phone call from my team asking for my help because we had received a call from the Department of Homeland Security telling us that a 7-year-old girl was being sexually abused and that content was being spread around the dark web and she'd been being abused and they'd watched her for three years and they could not find the perpetrator. Asking us for help.
The US actor also said that the "tools" Thorn has created, called Spotlight and Solis, can be used by law enforcement to prioritise their case load related to child sex abuse.
The Spotlight tool, which Ashton said has helped identify 6,000 victims in six months, was created after a 2012 sex trafficking survey found that 63 per cent of underage victims reported being bought or sold online.
The Solis tool, Ashton said, is currently being used by 40 agencies across the world today in beta, and he expects the tool will "get smarter and more efficient and cost effective over time".
Kutcher, who is married to actress Mila Kunis and has two children, co-founded Thorn in 2010 and said becoming a parent had propelled his campaign against human trafficking
