I Watched Sound Of Freedom, Now What?

Many people have seen the Sound of Freedom movie this summer and it is inspiring people to want to do something to combat trafficking. For some people they envision kicking doors down, rescuing kids, and locking up the bad guys.

While the passion to fight injustice is a good thing, the reality is that prevention is arguably one of the most important things we can do to combat trafficking and should be a focus for our society. Shouldn’t we want to stop trafficking from happening before it’s ever a reality for someone? If we could stop the trauma, abuse, and exploitation before it reaches a vulnerable person, that should be a goal we collectively share.

What makes someone vulnerable to being trafficked? Lots of things. It can be unprocessed childhood trauma, abuse, or lack of attachment to a healthy adult. It can also be circumstantial things like not having a place to live, being fired from a job, or substance abuse.

So how do we prevent those things from happening? A lot of it starts with healthy families. The more we can provide support to a vulnerable family or parent, foster a child in a crisis, provide safety to someone without a home, give basic necessities to those who need it, we start to immediately decrease vulnerabilities.

Prevention also means educating kids about the realities of what is happening online, the harms of pornography, self-exploitation, and grooming so they recognize when they encounter predators, explicit materials, or traffickers online or in their lives.

Another huge issue (that would stop trafficking if it was ended) is demand. Sex buyers drive the sex trafficking industry and there are proven correlations between paying for sex and childhood trauma and/or habitual pornography use. Addressing these things in society would start to combat trafficking in a big way.

This article by Fight the New Drug also has some practical ways for people to combat trafficking, 5 Ways You Can Help Fight Human Sex Trafficking (fightthenewdrug.org)

REHOPE also welcomes help from the community. Volunteers can help trafficking victims in a myriad of practical ways. You can become a volunteer by filling out this form- Volunteer for Victims of Sex and Human Trafficking | REHOPE

Rather than focusing on the “rescue and raid” mentality, focusing on prevention, demand, and practical ways to serve survivors goes a long way in combatting this huge injustice.