Gisteren hield Ashton Kutcher een emotionele speech ten overstaan van het Amerikaanse Senate Foreign Relations Committee, omdat hij zijn steentje wil bijdragen aan het strijden tegen moderne slaverij.

De acteur gaf een emotionele speech over kinderhandel en de dingen die hij heeft gezien toen-ie met de FBI meeging. Ashton Kutcher is de mede-oprichter van Thorn, een organisatie die meehelpt aan technische innovatie waarmee gestreden kan worden tegen seksuele exploitatie van kinderen over de hele wereld.

Kutcher - zelf vader van een zoon en dochter - deelde met het Senaat de verschrikkelijke dingen die hij heeft gezien, waarbij kinderen van niet ouder dan twee jaar betrokken zijn:

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Een deel van Ashton Kutchers aangrijpende speech:

'I am here today to defend the right to pursue happiness. It's a simple notion—the right to pursue happiness. It's bestowed upon all of us by our Constitution. Every citizen of this country has the right to pursue it, and I believe that it is incumbent upon us as citizens of this nation, as Americans, to bestow that right upon others, upon each other, and upon the rest of the world. But the right to pursue happiness, for so many, is stripped away. It's raped. It's abused. It's taken by force, fraud, or coercion. It is sold for the momentary happiness of another. This is about the time that I start talking about politics and the internet trolls tell me to stick to my day job.

So I'd like to talk about my day job. My day job is as the chairman and cofounder of Thorn. We build software to fight human trafficking and the sexual exploitation of children. That's our core mission. My other day job is that of the father of two—a 2-month old and a 2-year-old. And as part of that job that I take very seriously, I believe that it is my effort to defend their right to pursue happiness and to ensure a society and government that defends it as well. 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. I've met victims in 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. I've seen video content of a child that's the same age as mine being raped by an American man that was a sex tourist in Cambodia. And this child was so conditioned by her environment that she thought she was engaging in play. I've been on the other end of a phone call from my team, asking for my help because we had received a call from the Department of Homeland Security telling us that a 7-year-old girl was being sexually abused and that content was being spread around the dark web, and she had been being abused and they had watched her for three years and they could not find the perpetrator, asking us for help. We were the last line of defense, an actor and his foundation were the potential last line of defense. That's my day job, and I'm sticking to it...'

Ashton Kutcher vertelde vervolgens een verhaal van een 15-jarig meisje uit Oklahoma die door een man die ze had ontmoet op 't web in de mensenhandel werd gelokt. Na drie dagen werd ze weer thuisgebracht, doordat software dat is ontworpen door Thorn haar wist op te sporen.

Ashton Kutcher omschreef de techonolgie die ze hadden gebruikt en droeg de kracht van technologie aan om een betere wereld te scheppen. Zo gaf hij zijn aanbevelingen aan het Senaat over hoe ze technologie konden gebruiken om kinder- en mensenhandel over de hele wereld stevig aan te pakken.

Hij eindigde zijn betoog met:

'Happiness can be given to no man, it must be earned. It must be earned through generosity, and through purpose. But the right to pursue it is every man's right. And I beg of you that if you give people the right to pursue it, what you may find in return is happiness for yourself.'

Senator John McCain, die Kutcher omschreef als zijn eigen 'persoonlijke held' bedankte de acteur voor zijn speech en sloot af met: 'Ashton, you were better looking in the movies', waarop Ashton Kutcher moest lachen en hem een kus toeblies.

Je kan Ashton Kutchers volledige speech van 16 minuten hieronder terugzien:

[youtube ]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=duHaXhjVVpk&start=0[/youtube]

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Van: Cosmopolitan US