Ashton Kutcher’s long been a presence in Hollywood. For years he’s been entertaining us via roles in movies and shows like Dude, Where’s My Car?, The Butterfly Effect and Two and a Half Men.
But it’s not just on the big screen that he’s been making serious inroads. Many people don’t know that the 40-year-old is a respected entrepreneur and investor. In fact, Kutcher’s influence is such that he’s been credited with helping to build the success of massively impactful companies such as Airbnb, Spotify and Uber.
However, it’s his work within the anti-human trafficking sector that perhaps deserves the highest praise. Thorn – an organization he and his ex-wife Demi Moore founded in 2008 – was responsible for saving 6,000 trafficking victims in a single year, and you probably know nothing about it, right? Well, we didn’t either, so we decided to do some digging…
Ashton Kutcher’s long been a presence in Hollywood. For years he’s been entertaining us via roles in movies and shows like Dude, Where’s My Car?, The Butterfly Effect and Two and a Half Men.
But it’s not just on the big screen that he’s been making serious inroads. Many people don’t know that the 40-year-old is a respected entrepreneur and investor.
In fact, Kutcher’s influence is such that he’s been credited with helping to build the success of massively impactful companies such as Airbnb, Spotify and Uber.
However, it’s his work within the anti-human trafficking sector that perhaps deserves the highest praise. Thorn – an organization he and his ex-wife Demi Moore founded in 2008 – was responsible for saving 6,000 trafficking victims in a single year, and you probably know nothing about it, right?
Well, I didn’t either, so we decided to do some digging…
Back in 2012, Kutcher and his ex-wife, Demi Moore, decided to found an organization to combat human trafficking after they were inspired by a documentary they watched on sex trafficking in Cambodia.
According to Kutcher, “The internet has created an opportunity for mass distribution of images and videos of child sexual abuse, and the majority are very young children, often under 12.”
“They describe it as this moment where you learn something about the world that you can’t un-know,” the Thorn website states. “As they started learning more, they realized that it is just as prolific of a problem here in the United States as it is overseas.”
According to reports, Kutcher’s company, Thorn, reported that in 2015, 75 percent of child sex trafficking survivors it monitored were eventually “sold” online.
Speaking on the subject in 2016, Kutcher said: “Basically, the purchase and commerce for human trafficking is happening online, just like everything else now, and so we’re building digital tools to fight back against it.”
Kutcher and Thorn have so far helped to identify 9,380 child sex-trafficking victims and are now furthering their efforts with the campaign Real Men Don’t Buy Girls.
Brilliant, right? These are truly staggering statistics, made all the more impressive by the fact that Kutcher doesn’t use them to further himself. You won’t hear him boasting over how many people he’s saved; you’ll see few news reports documenting Thorn’s successes. To us, that’s a true mark of the man and his character.
And if you are wondering, you can still see Ashton Kutcher in some new projects; He spent two years on the show “The Ranch” and is going to appear in the new James Franco film “The Long Home.”
Watch the clip below to hear Kutcher talk about his acts and more of his incredible goals:
We can’t be the only ones greatly impressed by Kutcher’s work! Human trafficking must be stopped, and it’s only through organizations such as Thorn that progress will be made in the fight.
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