Ashton Kutcher Running NYC Marathon to Help End Child Sexual Abuse Online: 'We've Got to Fix This'

Ashton Kutcher has a bright smile on his face after completing a long marathon training run on a hot Los Angeles morning. "I genuinely enjoy running," Kutcher tells PEOPLE. "I don't enjoy running in pain."

Kutcher has been having knee issues, but checked in with a doctor to make sure he's not doing any permanent damage. "I'm trying to manage pain and hopefully be able to get to the starting line with as little pain as possible, so I can enjoy the run. Training's going good. I mean, I'm running the thing hell or high water," the 44 year old says.

The actor is running the New York City Marathon on Sunday, November 6, to raise money for his foundation Thorn, which works to protect children from sex trafficking.

"The idea that there are children, some of them are preverbal, that are being abused in this way right now today, probably closer to where you live than what you think, that's hard for people to wrap their head around," Kutcher says.

Thorn

"There are three or four kids that in particular, cases that we're working on still and one of which we've been working on for two-and-a-half years, and still haven't found the kid," Kutcher says. "I know how to find a kid. It's just illegal to do the things that I would need to do in order to find the kid."

"I put that kid on the other side of the finish line," he says, tearing up. "I know she's out there and I want her to know that somebody's coming for her."

The idea for the foundation came to Kutcher 15 years ago, when he turned on an episode of Dateline about child sex trafficking and found himself in disbelief.

"I was shocked and bewildered by the fact that this was happening in the world and people weren't jumping up and down going, 'We've got to fix this right now!' " Kutcher says. "My ex-wife [Demi Moore] and I turned to each other and said, 'We got to fix this right now,' and set out and founded DNA organization, which is now called Thorn. I spent about five years researching the issue globally, domestically, researching human trafficking and then it broadened out to trafficking in general and human slavery, modern slavery and what that was."

Thorn Ashton Kutcher poses alongside Thorn CEO Julie Cordua before a marathon training run for their organization.

When he started brainstorming ways to work on the global issue, the foundation "started looking for patterns that were consistent, that could lead to a potential solution, and we found that 75% of the transactions for sex with children were happening online."

"I thought, 'Well, I invest in a lot of tech companies and I know a lot of founders and entrepreneurs in the space ... We brought together a bunch of smart folks and are building software that's now being used around the world in all 50 states in the United States to help prioritize caseload for law enforcement."

The Thorn foundation is now celebrating its 10 year anniversary and its CEO, Julie Cordua hopes they can put an end to child sex trafficking and the sexual exploitation of children online once and for all.

"Thorn is now the world's largest technical team 100% dedicated to building technology to end online child sexual abuse, and so that money is going directly to our ability to hire great engineers and great data scientists to build the world's leading technology to find kids, to take down abuse content, and to help educate parents," Cordua tells PEOPLE.

"We give our software away to law enforcement around the world who can't afford it, and so some countries can pay for it, some countries can't. But we have a no-child-left-behind mentality, so that's why we're structured as a nonprofit. We want to make sure that we are changing the way the entire world responds to online child sexual abuse, and the donations help allow us to do that," she says.

Thorn

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Now, the former Two and a Half Men star is hoping the excitement of running a marathon will get people's attention.

"Doing it in the context of the New York Marathon opens it up in a way that you go, 'Okay, well let's talk about the marathon first,' because people like talking about running a marathon," Kutcher shares." It's our crazy thing that people do. Then when we talk about that first, it creates a bridge to have a conversation about this, to have a conversation about the conversation parents should be having with their children."

According to a statistic provided to PEOPLE by the organization, Thorn reported that 40% of minors have experienced cold solicitations for nudes online, including roughly one in four children ranging in ages 9-12. The report examined risky encounters in everyday digital socialization.

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Kutcher has also teamed up with celebrities such as Kim Kardashian and Kenny Chesney for an online training series Ashton Kutcher X Peloton, 'Our Future Selves' where his famous friends run next to him while having an informative chat as they help his fundraising efforts for the big day.

Robin Arzón/Instagram

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"Technically we were going to run prior to COVID and we were all set to do this as a fundraising awareness effort and then COVID hit and we couldn't run because they canceled the marathon," Kutcher, who's raised almost $473K to date, says. "This is the reboot."

Donations for Kutcher's run to benefit Thorn can be made here.