Surveying the Anti-Human Trafficking Community 

    Anyone committed to ending human trafficking is a “good guy,” but some are better than others. I found a number of seemingly well-run groups while reviewing the competitive landscape for anti-human trafficking charity organizations. Other groups seemed like they were driven, but are unable to provide any concrete results. In the past, some groups have been accused of not using donations efficiently and advocates recommend asking for an IRS 990 before donating to any group to see where money is going. It looks like no other group is pursuing the approach I am recommending, which means there could be space in the market.

     Several of the groups I found were run by very religious persons or ex-military/law enforcement. Both of these types of groups focus on a bottom up approach to human trafficking that catch individual handlers of trafficked persons. One group, the US Institute Against Human Trafficking, considers restriction of access to pornography among the most critical parts of its mission. They are unlikely to be an ally in the future, since legalization of prostitution is going to be a critical policy goal for us.

     The Polaris Project appears to be the gold standard for anti-human trafficking organizations. They take a top-down and bottom-up approach that tries to rescue individuals from their forced labor, advocate for them in the legal system, and lobby for policy to provide added protections. Polaris is able to provide concrete numbers for what they have done and what they are planning on doing in the future. A partnership with Polaris could be a catalyst for significant growth, but we have to understand our unorthodox approach could be anathema to many of their members.