Presented by Monark Vyas, Managing Director, Applied Intelligence, Accenture

Human trafficking is a horrific business, and it's all around us, in plain sight. An estimated 25 million people are victims of human trafficking each year globally, with many more cases going unreported. It’s also a $150 billion industry, making it the second most profitable in the world. These facts alone are terrifying. This is without even considering the long-term mental and physical health impact human trafficking activities have on victims, their families and loved ones. Often, it also leads to life-threatening health risks and untimely death.
 
Emerging technologies and digital platforms play a critical role in this crime with the perpetrators using some of the most sophisticated tools, while our agencies play catch up. Accenture has created various partnerships to fight this crime by bridging the digital divide. Accenture recently collaborated with Splunk and the Global Emancipation Network (GEN) to pilot a way to use data and artificial intelligence to find and prioritize businesses based on their risk propensity to employ human trafficking victims, ultimately saving lives.
 
Such technology solutions solve a major issue: Human traffickers use sophisticated methods to hide in plain sight from law enforcement. For example, traffickers might advertise their businesses online with references to “roses” or “flowers” in exchange for services – a coded language that signals the illicit nature of what they are doing. They also take advantage of a wide range of technologies such as encrypted phones, social media, and the deep/dark web to market and profit from their victims.
 
Accenture has made tremendous strides through various partnerships that enable our agencies to use technology to uncover, prioritize, collaborate and augment investigative efforts. We see human trafficking as a human supply chain that can be disrupted at various stages and allows our agencies to ‘do more with less’.