DEPDC is a non-profit community based NGO working in Thailand on the prevention side of the trafficking of women and children into the sex industry or other exploitative child labour situations. It offers free education, vocational training and full time accomodation for young girls and boys in an effort to achieve these goals.
As well as providing free permanent shelter and education DEPDC also runs several other projects and activities aimed at the prevention of trafficking and the provision of child rights in the region; emergency shelter for abused or abandoned children, care and repatriation for girls who have left commercial sex work, education for vulnerable children and teens outside of the formal education system, youth leadership education programme to combat trafficking in the Mekong Sub-Region and vocational and human rights training for undocumented migrants and indigenous peoples.
Since its inception DEPDC has helped prevent thousands of children from the Mekong sub-region succumb to the sex industry or other exploitative child labour situations. These young children have received further schooling or vocational training as a good start to a healthy life.
DEPDC is recognised locally, nationally and internationally. Its director, Sompop Jantraka, an Ashoka Fellow, is a member of several associations and regularly participates in conferences related to child trafficking and the sex industry.