Demi & Ashton Foundation

Shedding a Light on Human Trafficking

The Demi and Ashton Foundation focused on child slavery, human trafficking awareness and legislative change. We built a fully functional content management system able to withstand millions of visitors and on-the-fly content updates with no problems. Complete social integration into Facebook and Twitter.

About the Foundation

The DNA Foundation (The Demi and Ashton Foundation) was established in 2010 by Hollywood actors Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher with a mission to combat the organized sexual exploitation of children worldwide. Founded on the belief that freedom is a fundamental human right, the organization aimed to end child sex slavery by addressing root causes, raising awareness, changing cultural stereotypes, and rehabilitating victims.

Moore was inspired to act after viewing an MSNBC documentary on human trafficking and learning that child sexual exploitation was occurring not only in Cambodia but also within the United States. In 2012, following the dissolution of the founders' marriage, the organization was renamed "Thorn: Digital Defenders of Children," though both Moore and Kutcher remained committed as co-founders.

Impact and Achievements

Under both names, the foundation has achieved significant success in its mission. The DNA Foundation brought child sex trafficking awareness into the mainstream through its Real Men Don't Buy Girls campaign, which reached millions of people. The organization partnered with law enforcement to train officers on recognizing human trafficking indicators and collaborated with CNN to produce the documentary "Nepal's Stolen Children" about sex trafficking in India and Nepal.

As Thorn evolved, it focused increasingly on technology-based solutions, building tools that have helped identify thousands of child trafficking victims. By 2017, Thorn had assisted law enforcement in identifying 5,894 child sex trafficking victims and rescuing 103 children from situations where their sexual abuse was recorded and distributed. The organization also created a tool called Solis to help agencies find child abuse offenders on the dark web more quickly, and has helped the tech industry detect over 5 million child sexual abuse files from the open web.

Ashton Kutcher has made notable media appearances to discuss the foundation's work, including emotional testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in 2017. Both Kutcher and Moore have used their celebrity platforms extensively to raise awareness about child trafficking, with Kutcher continuing to be an outspoken advocate against child sexual exploitation through his work with Thorn.