The Development and Education Programme for Daughters and Communities (DEPDC) is a non-profit, community-based NGO working in Thailand to prevent child exploitation and prostitution and defend the rights of minors.
The DEP, later the DEPDC, was founded in 1988 by Sampop Jantraka,[1] as a response to the practice of selling young children into the sex industry.
[2] DEPDC offers free education, vocational training, and full-time accommodation for young girls and boys, and helps combat human trafficking in the Mekong sub-region.
[citation needed] He used the money that he earned as a researcher to pay families of girls that would have otherwise been sent to a life of sexual slavery, but instead were allowed to stay home and obtain their education.
[citation needed] In addition, The Thailand Project: Higher Education as Humanitarian Aid[8] proposes to partner non-governmental organizations with American universities with the goal of offering educational opportunities to stateless young women like those who attended DEPDC in order to give these individuals the tools to return to their home country and work to combat the conditions that cause child exploitation and prostitution.