Fighting Human Trafficking

ASHOKA FELLOW, WASHINGTON, DC, USA

Derek Ellerman has created a global citizen sector organization, Polaris Project, which aims to end the third largest criminal industry in the world – human trafficking. Trafficking enslaves millions around the world, and generates billions of dollars as an industry.

Derek launched Polaris Project, while a student at Brown University, to end the cycle of trafficking in destination countries. Today, Polaris helps law enforcement and communities break the private trafficking networks, promotes laws against the traffickers and their assets, and provides case management and emergency shelter for victims. Derek has developed an extensive database of trafficking operations that is used to assist in victim outreach and law enforcement against traffickers.

While there are dozens of anti-trafficking organizations around the world, the Polaris Project is the only multicultural grassroots agency that attacks the criminal industry in the destination countries, working both at the policy level and in the trenches.

In the summer of 2004, Polaris Project launched its first international office in Tokyo, Japan, and will be replicating strategies developed in the United States.

Speech Topics

• Human Trafficking
• Social Policy
• Anti-Trafficking Legislation