Matt Parker training Thai Royal Police officers.
by Matt Parker, Co-founder, Chief Investigative Office, The Exodus Road
Human trafficking is a $236 billion global, criminal industry occurring in every country in the world. occurring in every country in the world.
The United Nations estimates over 50 million people worldwide will be trafficked each year—with 55% subjected to forced labor and 12.6% exploited through sex trafficking. Perpetrators often prey on the impoverished, undereducated, isolated and abused— exploiting their circumstances with false promises of security and stability. Those trafficked become part of an underground economy where they are made to work for low or no pay and are afforded few, if any, legal protections.
A secretive crime by nature, perpetrators often scout for victims online and offer victims for sale within bars, massage parlors and prostitution or escort services. This underworld survives by threatening, manipulating and scaring victims into submission, so much so that even if a victim can escape, they are often reluctant to come forward to the police. It is estimated that as few as 14% of human trafficking incidents are reported to authorities. Add to that the complexities of cross-border investigations, lack of equitable specialized training, cultural and legislative nuances across jurisdictions and the exponentially high cost of resources - it’s no wonder law enforcement struggles to effectively investigate these incidents, identify crime rings, prosecute the perpetrators and empower victims as they regain their freedom.
Dismantling this humanitarian crisis cannot be accomplished in a silo. It takes a thoughtful and holistic system of partners including technology providers, philanthropic organizations and invested community leaders to support law enforcement and drive change. The strength is in the collaboration—where everyone involved is driven by the common goal of justice for survivors and disrupting the cycle of this horrendous crime.
In January 2024, The Exodus Road, whose vision is for a world where no human is bought, sold, or exploited, joined a landmark commitment to accelerate investigations of crimes against children and online exploitation through a first-of-its-kind effort between The Exodus Road, Raven, National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) and Cellebrite.
Through Operation Find Them All, law enforcement agencies working cases with The Exodus Road and NCMEC have in-kind access to Cellebrite’s end-to-end digital investigative solutions.
In the first half of 2024, one-third of the cases worked by The Exodus Road in the Philippines alone involved online sexual exploitation of children. With the funding and technology resources provided through Operation Find Them All, The Exodus Road assisted the National Bureau of Investigations in the rescue of 10 children. In these cases, Cellebrite’s technology enabled law enforcement to lawfully access and collect data from the perpetrators’ digital devices. It is this digital “smoking gun” that often empowers a perpetrator’s arrest. Through The Exodus Road, these survivors then received trauma-informed aftercare to assist on their recovery journey while prosecutors built a defensible case to hold their traffickers accountable.
Beyond investigations, The Exodus Road emphasizes and enables training as another critical piece in the fight against human trafficking. In Brazil, more than 4,400 law enforcement officers in the country’s Federal, Civil and Border Police attended training events in 2024—empowering them to identify victims of exploitation and bring survivors home. More than 20 survivors have already been freed and returned home following this training.
Additionally, over 140 Thai Royal Police officers were trained in the proper handling of digital evidence to ensure defensibility in court. These Thai officers immediately put these skills to use gathering evidence from devices linked to locations known for human trafficking. Their efforts helped save 18 Moroccan captives exploited for forced cyberscam schemes in a compound on the Thailand border.
Year to date, The Exodus Road has already trained 4,600 officers, assisted in freeing and caring for 128 survivors and helped bring charges against 46 alleged offenders. Without collaborative partnerships between non-profits, law enforcement and technology pioneers, such swift and large-scale impact would have been much slower and more challenging.
As law enforcement continues investigating these heinous crimes, the partnership of technology providers, interventionists, policy advocates and law enforcement agencies, like that of Operation Find Them All, has proven helpful in disrupting crime rings, closing cases more defensibly and empowering survivors on their road to healing.
Even the most collaborative efforts are made more effective with public buy-in and support. Learning and looking for the warning signs of child predators and understanding the practices of human traffickers can make the difference between a safe childhood and one marred by exploitation.
About the Author
Matt Parker, Co-founder and Chief Investigative Officer. Matt and Laura Parker founded The Exodus Road together in 2012. Matt served as CEO for nearly 10 years. The Exodus Road (TER) is a non-governmental 501(c)(3) organization that works to combat human trafficking through prevention, intervention, and aftercare programs. To date, the organization has been involved in the rescue of 2,840 survivors, the arrest of 1,693 Traffickers, and the training of 45,551 officers and civilians.