Inside a Massive Anti-Trafficking Charity’s Blundering Overseas Missions

We saw Sound of Freedom yesterday and it sparked a day-long conversation.

My adopted daughter was “trafficked” by her own biological mother, who gave her drugs and sold her for sex.

She died of a drug overdose in 2021 at the hands of her abusive boyfriend who bought her for sex.

We are now raising her daughters who were also exposed to abuse.

Child pornography is real and devastating. Trafficking is real and devastating. The movie is worth seeing for that reason, but I have profound questions about this narrative and this organization—which seems to have claims which are hard to verify or even possibly not helpful in terms of de-incentivizing human trafficking.

I began to question the OUR narrative when I read Katherine Ballard’s gloss on their adopted children. I have fostered and adopted a number of trafficked children and none of them have showed me “pure love” (nor do they need to). They have had deep wounds and have needed structure, love, and constancy from my family.

Do I “adore” any of them? I don’t think I should adore anyone but Jesus. But I have stayed in the trenches with them and I have learned that real love is just doing the best and wanting the best for someone, especially when their behavior reflects their trauma.

Christians may be willing to accept any Christian-adjacent narrative when we need to ask the hard questions even as we acknowledge that many of the stories of the predations of children happen inside the economy of poverty and addiction and maybe Ballard’s methods and efficacy need to be questioned by all of us.

OUR promises that they can, do and will go into the darkest corners of the world to rescue children. I hope they do. But we all need to be rescuers and often that is less flak vests and cameras and more quotidian commitments and truth-telling.

Jesus leaves the 99 for us. He expects all of us to be the hands and feet of his love.

All of the below round up is just for others to have more information about a flawed but ultimately valuable movie.

I am not advocating for anything but the Truth.

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/history/global-histories/haiti/stories-of-faith/ht-04-we-had-to-seek-god?lang=eng

https://www.christianitytoday.com/news/2023/july/anti-trafficking-ministries-nonprofits-sound-of-freedom.html

https://www.wkrn.com/news/local-news/tennessee-congressmen-want-answers-on-the-citizenship-of-a-franklin-soccer-coach-accused-of-raping-children/

10 Best Charities Fighting to Combat Human Trafficking

https://www.vice.com/en/article/4a3apm/anti-trafficking-group-with-long-history-of-false-claims-gets-its-hollywood-moment

https://www.historyvshollywood.com/reelfaces/sound-of-freedom/