If you’ve been paying attention to the news at all in the last few years, you know that mainstream media coverage of sex trafficking has (thankfully) become more widespread: though sex trafficking is an oft-ignored topic due to its dark subject matter and the secrecy surrounding the business itself, the abuse inflicted on those being trafficked has finally come to light. After learning about such a horrific enterprise, however, an even bigger problem remains: how do we address a problem that spans continents and affects so many people?
Though we might not personally have the skill set or the money to donate in order to provide resistance against the abomination that is sex trafficking, there is a new and easy way to help fight the good fight…and all you need to participate in a smart phone.
Enter TraffickCam, an app that is available for free on both iPhone and Android devices. Because a huge amount of illegal pornography and photography of sex-trafficked individuals is taken in anonymous hotels by sex traffickers, researchers at Washington University and the Exchange Initiative decided to make these hotels a little less anonymous. With TraffickCam, anyone can take and upload a photo of their own hotel room to the TraffickCam app, thus adding the image and location to a national database. By doing this, police agents working against sex trafficking are able to run your hotel room photos against the backgrounds of the illegal pornography, comparing wallpaper prints and shabby furniture in order to pinpoint the exact hotel and room where a sex trafficking crime took place. This, amazingly, creates a trail for police to follow where there wasn’t one before. The app is totally legit–check out Snopes if you don’t believe me–and users have already uploaded over a million photos.
With TraffickCam, your weekend getaway with the girls turns into an easy opportunity to help those who have been forced into sex trafficking. So, what are you waiting for? Download the app and join the fight against sex trafficking and abuse before your next trip!
