SlaverMap.com provides a new tool to combat international trafficking.

It is estimated that over 27 million people all over the world are trafficked annually. Rough estimates say that around 14,000-17,000 of this occurs in our own backyard. However most people have a view that US is largely unaffected by slavery and bonded labor, and its only the developing countries which have such problems.

There are lots of individual groups working around the world with a goal to eradicate this heinous crime. However there was no tool which combined their efforts and brought them in front of the general public, in a simplified manner. Now SlaveryMap.com provides a tool which enables these organizations to spread the word about their work to a much larger audience. The website was started by Prof. David Batstone, who was so shocked by the fact the death of Seetha Vemireddy, a bonded laborer at a local restaurant in his backyard that he decided to start a full time organization to combat this crime. SlaveryMap.com essentially collects information from government sources, NGOs and from people like you. This information is then mapped on to the Yahoo Mapping solution, which spreads this information regarding the reported incident. To prevent people misusing it for their own purposes and reporting false cases, the website has a full time editor who scans and documents the incidents reported. The website was inaugurated recently in June of 2008, but has gained significant momentum to attract over 500,000 unique visitors over the last couple of months.

SlaveryMaps.com was also recognized recently by ChangeMakers.net as the leading as “a leading solution for the worldwide community of innovators who are exposing, confronting and ending modern day slavery”.