Modern slavery is not history. An estimated 50 million people live in forced labor and forced marriage today, and tens of millions of children are exposed to sexual content and exploitation online every year. The technology to detect, prevent, and disrupt these harms exists — but too much of it is locked behind enterprise paywalls, closed source, or simply hard to find.
We believe protection should be a public good. The most effective safety tools should be free to inspect, free to run, and free to adapt — by a shelter in one country, a school district in another, and a parent at the kitchen table.
What we stand for
- Open source, always. Every tool we feature can be read, audited, and self-hosted. No black boxes deciding what's safe.
- Privacy by design. We prioritize tools that run on-device or on your own servers, keeping the data of survivors and children out of third-party hands.
- Built for impact, not profit. There is nothing to upsell — only tools to deploy and a mission to advance.
- Accessible to all skill levels. Clear, plain-language guides take you from clone to running, whether you're a developer or a first-time installer.
- Honest about limits. No tool is a silver bullet. We describe what each project does, and does not, do — and pair technology with human help lines.
How it works
We maintain a curated catalog of mature, actively maintained open-source projects, organized into two fronts: Online Safety — protecting children from adult content and online exploitation — and Human Trafficking — intelligence and investigation tools for those on the front lines.
Each listing links directly to the project's source repository and its installation documentation, with a copy-paste command to get started. We don't host the tools or claim to have built them — we make them findable, and we explain how they help.
Community & conduct
One Less Slave is built by a community that takes the gravity of this work seriously. We expect everyone who contributes to act with respect, integrity, and care for the people these tools are meant to protect. Harassment, misuse of tools against vulnerable people, or any attempt to exploit this catalog for harm has no place here and will result in removal.
Tools listed here are powerful and, like all dual-use technology, must be used lawfully and ethically — with proper authorization and respect for privacy and human rights.
Get help now
If you or someone you know is in danger, please reach out to these resources. In an emergency, always contact local emergency services first.
- U.S. National Human Trafficking Hotline: 1-888-373-7888 · text 233733 · humantraffickinghotline.org
- Report online child exploitation (NCMEC CyberTipline): report.cybertip.org · 1-800-843-5678
- Outside the U.S.: contact your national anti-trafficking hotline or local law enforcement.