Big Data to find Big Answers to Big Problems

Big Data to find Big Answers to Big Problems

The Human Trafficking is one of the biggest worldwide unsolved problems. It is also one of the most profitable business. The problem seems big, but, How much?; How is split the profitability of this big cake? Who is interested to stop it? How to tackle the problem efficiently? How does the technology can help to avoid the human trafficking? The data is the first key to know what is the real size of the problem, but also how to attack it. Google announced few weeks ago, they will provide money, but also their platform to help to solve this problem.

Governments around the world refuse to upgrade the human trafficking to slavery. Even when the characteristics to determine slavery and human trafficking are indistinguishable. 

• "Human Trafficking is the trade in humans, most commonly for purposes of sexual slavery, forced labor or for extraction of organs or tissues, including surrogacy and ova removal." 

• "Slavery is a system under which people are treated as property to be bought and sold, and are forced to work. Slaves can be held against their will from the time of their capture, purchase or birth, and deprived of the right to leave, to refuse to work, or to demand compensation. "

Whether government accept Slavery practice in their countries, they are obligated to provide more resources to get better policies, application of justice and support to the victims. The Human Trafficking market represents an estimated value of illicit international trade of 32 billions usd (Source: Global Financial Integrity, see page 56). However, the most interested to solve this problem are parents and society. They should pressure government and companies with enough power to produce efficient policies and contribute to the society's welfare.

The first obstacle is the diffuse and contradictory data between official and NGO versions. This is talking about there is no an efficient way to measure the problem. The first step to give an efficient attack human traffickers is to measure their activities, their profits, and count all the victims. To do this it is required a big effort, labor hours, logistics and money. 

Google announce in the past weeks presented its plan to Fight Human Trafficking with Big Data. Google will not only give 3 million usd to the Global Impact Award to help organizations like Polaris Project, Liberty Asia, and La Strada International to create a Global Human Trafficking Hotline.

Moreover, Google will provide the big missing to make  an effective fight against Human Trafickers, no only dat, but BIG DATA. The technology to provide the analytics will reduce the time an labor hours to find the patterns of trafficking, but also to find kidnapped and trafficked people. 

More than ever, the technology is available to solve problems have seemed overpassed any human force. The remote collaboration between social networks in real time, the BIG Data analysis provided by a worldwide platform, as Google is, the social pressure from the global community, are giving a hope that the fight against Human Trafficking is not lost.