Actor Ashton Kutcher's Non-Profit Identified Close to 6K Victims of Sex Abuse Last Year

Ashton Kutcher's non-profit organization which helps fight child sex abuse and human trafficking, says it identified almost 6,000 victims last year. 

Thorn: Digital Defenders of Children is an organization that uses software to end slavery by providing law enforcement with information on suspected human trafficking networks and their victims. 

"With the help of Thorn's tools, law enforcement, and investigators have been able to identify 5,791 child sex trafficking victims and rescue 103 children from situations where their sexual abuse was recorded and distributed. We're building tools to stand up the toughest environments and empowering the frontlines to stop abuse before it happens," the organization said in its 2017 impact report. 

That's just the beginning. Thorn isn't just working to defend victims of sex abuse. It also is providing resources to change the behavior of the perpetrators. 

"We communicate directly with people searching for child sexual abuse material, disrupting their sense of anonymity, aiming to change their behavior and increase their accountability. Our child sexual abuse deterrence program has seen over 2.6 million visitors and 140,000+ instances where individuals went on to actively seek further help," the report says. 

The organization also works directly with law enforcement to investigate sex trafficking and abuse globally. Thorn says it has helped speed up investigation time by as much as 65%.

Last year Kutcher testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee about the impact his work is having. 

"As part of my anti-trafficking work, I've met victims in Russia. I've met victims in India, I've met victims that have been trafficked from Mexico. Victims from New York and New Jersey and all across our country. I've been on FBI raids where I've seen things that no person should ever see," Kutcher explained. 

He told the CBS News crime series "48 Hours" last month that his organization is getting bigger and better. 

"You can roll up your sleeve and go try to be like a hero and save one person, or you can build a tool that allows one person to save a lot of people," he said in the episode. "And our algorithms are getting better. We're getting smarter. We're getting the tool in more people's hands."