

Twilio Teams Up With Nonprofits To Help Fight Human Trafficking - pla3rhat3r
http://www.twilio.com/blog/2013/03/twilio-teams-up-with-nonprofits-to-help-fight-human-trafficking.html

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geekam
I love this. Long time ago, I tried to see if I could do a similar project but
never got far. It was not for Human trafficking victims but was for the entire
female population of South East Asia counties, esp. India where assaults on
women and rapes are really common. I think a similar texting service can be
setup for women in countries like India to call for help if possible or at
least report it (maybe anonymously?). In a country where Police is basically
useless, this will at least come in handy if there is enough data pouring in
and maybe citizens can help each other by watching out for a particular place
that is unsafe.

I'd really like to work for such a project.

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RobSpectre
Can you shoot me an email at rob [at] twilio? Would love to connect you to
some folks.

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geekam
Hi Rob, I just sent you an email regarding this. Thanks so much!

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daniel_reetz
This is good work - some trafficking victims cannot make phone calls and many
REALLY do not want to engage authorities/the police.

I was close to an incident involving some J1s a few years ago. I'm not how
this technology would have helped that particular situation, though Polaris
Project did help. A big problem with NHTRC is that if you connect the victims
with them, they ask MANY MANY MANY questions of the victim but legally cannot
DO very much. It tires the victims out and roughs up already shaky trust.

So my question is: What happens if you text this number?

Also: How do victims of trafficking learn about this number?

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RobSpectre
When a victim texts BEFREE, he or she gets connected to a trained NHTRC
staffer working the SMS channel 24/7. Staffer works the case and provides
resources through Chatter for the center's existing SFDC instance, ensuring
the new short code is well integrated with their existing toolset.

Twilio, Salesforce, Thorn and Polaris are all raising awareness about the
short code through a number of marketing channels, but as with anything
important, any one calling attention to the story and the issue helps.

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stephenhuey
Sweet! I'll pass this on to my friends at A 2nd Cup since they collaborate
with other anti-human trafficking organizations in Houston.

facebook.com/a2ndcup

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doug1001
kudos to this shop. Neither my employer nor i are Twilio customers, but i do
know then from two projects they have open soruced, which i regularly use--
both of very high quality (Flask-RESTful & Localtunnel).

w/r/t the subject of this Post, this is a courageous thing to do--because
awareness of this problem, particularly in the US, is not high, and certainly
not as high as many other charitable causes (domestic violence, illiteracy,
teenager drug use, etc.) In addition, because of the widely alleged and
sometimes documented complicity of government officials et al. (see Huffington
Post article on Moldova & H/T) this is not a unanimously supported cause like
for instance the others i just mentioned.

but my god, the epic scale of this problem and the heart-breaking and
prolonged suffering of its victims. About five or six years ago, I saw Lukas
Moodysson's landmark film about human trafficking, "Lilya 4-ever"; some of the
images from that film i'll never get out of my head.

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josh2600
Good on them. Love to see technology with positive applications.

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RobSpectre
Thank you very much Josh. Stoked to see it out there.

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jennyjenjen
Twilio = good people, good work. Good job!

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RobSpectre
Much obliged Jen. Had a lot of good partners to work with on this one - the
folks at Thorn, Polaris and SFDC were great to work with. Stunning to see
their agility on a project like this.

