Data about marginal and poor communities is often collected by those in positions of relatively greater power. What happens when a community of Cambodian sex workers starts using digital technologies and learns about how data can be used in advocacy?

A distinctive aspect of trafficking is that data about how many people are actually trafficked around the world are highly contested. These contested and contentious statistics form the basis of policy, which have serious implications for sex-workers and trafficked people, and shape perceptions about them.

What if data tells only partial truths, or if the hopes we have invested in it are false? This case study about data about sexual violence in conflict reveals the 'social production' of data; the story of where this data comes from challenges the advocacy claims and messages based on it.

From corruption-exposing to violence-predicting and dictatorship-dismantling, data is a sort of superhero capable of truth-telling and future-gazing.

Introducing a series that explores the biographies of data in advocacy through the lens of a complex social issue: violence against women.