Announcing Project 1591®

Harnessing the power of many to find the vulnerable

Inspired by the law (18 U.S. Code § 1591) that protects children from being sold for sex, Project 1591® is the first-ever 24/7 crowdsourcing solution to combating child sex trafficking. This process and platform enables volunteers to become force multipliers to Guardian Group’s mission of illuminating child victims of sex trafficking in the United States.

The internet has allowed sex trafficking to increase at a dramatic rate and this problem cannot be solved by ONE person, ONE agency or ONE organization alone. A community-wide, scalable solution is vital to stopping this crime. Project 1591® is that solution.

Problem of Sex Trafficking

The fastest growing criminal industry in the world is the buying and selling of people [1]. There are a variety of reasons why this is happening:

– There is fairly low risk as these cases are difficult to investigate and prosecute

– This crime has taken to the internet allowing it to scale at an unprecedented rate

– A person is a reusable product that these predators can sell countless times, while those selling drugs and weapons always have a supply issue.

There are 150,000 new escort ads posted online every single day [2]. While not all these ads are victims of trafficking, many are. Hidden among this massive number of ads are children that are being sold for sex. This is the haystack society is expecting law enforcement to go through every day to recover these children.

Law enforcement often lacks the time, resources and sometimes the research skill set necessary to achieve this. Alongside that trafficking has a transient nature, meaning that law enforcement not only has a huge task in front of them, but they need to accomplish it before the victim is moved to someone else’s jurisdiction. All the while policing every other crime that is taking place within their jurisdiction.

The current strategy to combat this crime across the nation is a reactive approach. Project 1591® employs a proactive approach with the goal of seeing the number of victims affected by this crime drastically decrease.

A New Proactive Solution to Stopping Child Sex Trafficking

Since 2019 Guardian Group has worked in concert with higher learning, tech firms, and law enforcement officers to deliver a scalable solution, harnessing the power of volunteers across the country to fight sex trafficking in their own communities. Our solution is a 24/7 crowdsourcing process that allows a community of Open-Source Intelligence (OSINT) volunteers to use their skills for good and deliver their findings to Guardian Group’s Project 1591® platform.

 

How it works:

• RECRUIT OSINT skilled individuals willing to volunteer their time and expertise • TRAIN these volunteers through the PURSUIT® Volunteer Training and Assessment Course • Award ACCESS to the Project 1591 platforms based on skills assessment • Volunteers SUBMIT self-generated leads of potentially trafficked minors via the Project 1591 platform • Guardian Group VALIDATES and approves each lead • Approved leads are ILLUMINATED to law enforcement for action • The RESULTS, more victims offered a path to freedom.

The RESULTS, more victims offered a path to freedom.

This is not simple work. Many volunteers have sent feedback stating that this is much harder than they originally imagined. But as Theodore Roosevelt said, “nothing worth doing is easy.” We know this is challenging research work, that sometimes may end in dead ends and discouragement. Our team has been doing it for years now, and they recognize the power in the collective effort verses individual pin pricks at the problem. Therefore, we need your help to scale this effort. Every single child being exploited deserves our collective effort.

Join the PURSUIT® Team

The PURSUIT® team is made up of People United Responsibly Suppressing Underage Illicit Trafficking. When you join the Project 1591® platform you are joining this community of like minded individuals willing to volunteer their expertise to putting an end to the crime of child sex trafficking.

Within the platform, you will be able to watch the leader board change with every corroborated lead you submit. You can track your individual effort or the community as a whole, as points are awarded for vetted pieces of information. You will get the opportunity to watch the impact grow nationally.

 

It is time to use your OSINT skills for good.

Join Project 1591® and start putting an end to child sex trafficking in the United States today!

 

 

References
1. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. (n.d.). Human Trafficking Fact Sheet [PDF].

2.Thorn (2018, January). Survivor Insights: The Role of Technology in Domestic Minor Sex Trafficking [PDF].