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Hi from the Salvation Army. You're listening to Words of Life. These are the words, these are the words, these are the words of life. These are the words, these are the words, these are the words of life. The global human trafficking and forced labor industry generates an estimated $236 billion a year in illegal profits annually.
But there are real humans behind those staggering numbers. In today's episode, we discuss what the Salvation Army and other organizations are doing to help. If you or someone you love you suspect is being trafficked, call the National Human Trafficking Hotline at 1-888-358-888-888-888. We will also have additional links and resources in the show notes. Yeah.
Human trafficking is defined as the recruitment, transportation, transfer, or harboring or receipt of people through force, fraud, or coercion. It goes through the process of the action, the means, and the purpose. And so the action behind it is the recruitment. Like, what is it? Is it transportation?
It's the harboring. It's the act of the thing. The means is usually the threat, is the force, it's the coercion. It's the deception and the really the abuse of power. And then the purpose of it, exploitation, really.
It's the exploitation of vulnerabilities, the exploitation of people, and it takes on different forms. And so that second part of the question about trafficking. The perception of trafficking being more like kidnapping, the white van pulling up in the neighborhood and snatching children off the street. And I don't know where it came from. Maybe it's it's a conglomeration of media, movies, and conversation.
But really, what human trafficking is, it's grooming, it's recruiting. It's right there happening in households and schools online, and it takes on many, many faces. For example, we talk about peer-to-peer trafficking.
Sometimes it happens in middle school, high school, where there has been someone who was recruited and groomed as a high schooler or middle schooler. and is actively, unfortunately, being exploited by a trafficker. And they go into their circle of friends, their network, their schools, and they start the process of grooming. And it looks like relationship building. Yeah.
And I think traffickers often prey on vulnerable kids and adults, and they find women or boys who are have a background of Child abuse, who have you know, a single parent home where they don't have supervision or they don't feel like they have anyone that cares about them, and they become that person, right? That's you know, offering that, and so I think. That when we talk about mental health and addiction, it all ties in because once you begin experiencing that level of trauma and abuse and exploitation, often you're using substances to numb yourself or to survive. Then not only are you being trafficked, but you're also now in a cycle of addiction. And then you might get arrested.
And so then you're in the prison system and you're stuck in being criminalized. And it can become this cycle. And unfortunately, our culture criminalizes the women instead of the men. And so then they're even more stuck. I think a stat that sticks out to me is my Dr.
Melissa Farley. She did a research on women who are in prostitution. Um 89% of them said that if they actually had the means to leave that they would, but they feel stuck. They feel like You know they've They have no other options. They have whether it's their addiction or they don't have any safe place to go or they don't feel like they can have a job.
And so they just truly feel stuck. And so a lot of times what we see is they might be trafficked as a child, like Sheena was saying, and then they become an adult and maybe they're able to get away from their trafficker, but they're still stuck in that cycle of exploitation and prostitution because they feel that there's no way out. Yes, I definitely think that it's a vulnerability. And just even recently, I was talking to some people who work in the Claxton community in Atlanta, which is basically where refugees who have been screened and approved to come into America. Are kind of relocated in this part of the States.
And because of some of the policies that are in place at the moment and their benefits that are being cut and all the things that were provided for people that are now not being provided. A lot of these families are now at risk of being trafficked, especially late in the field of labor trafficking. And that has increased so much.
So It's very sad actually for people who have come here, done the right thing, and now being put in these really vulnerable positions and then finding themselves being exploited. Hey, you're listening to the Salvation Army's Words of Life. We're going to take a quick ad break, and we'll be right back. I'm Christy Graham, host of the show On the Ground with Samaritan's Purse. I recently attended an infectious disease training and donned personal protective equipment alongside our staff who are preparing to serve at one of our Ebola treatment centers in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Dustin, one of our staff members, shared the why behind his desire to serve in the DRC amid this dangerous outbreak. I want to be able to go to the ends of the earth for people that I haven't even met before because that's what Christ did for me. He took on humility, he took on human form when he had no need to. And if he did that for me, like there's just no appropriate response but to do that for others. Hearing our staff's hearts behind the mission and putting on the personal protective equipment deeply impacted me.
It reminded me of the armor of God and how we can put it on every day, no matter what we're facing. Listen to this behind the scenes episode by searching. on the ground with Samaritan's Purse, wherever you get your podcasts. Anyone who hasn't either been educated on human trafficking or just hasn't been exposed to it, a lot of people just it's out of sight, out of mind, and you almost can't believe that in 2026, You know, this could happen, but it's people seeing other people as just commodities. And it's not that hard to imagine.
I mean, we're only a few generations removed from like American slavery. But we're so good at quickly forgetting our history. If we didn't see it first hand, we just kind of oh, you know, it's it's not like that anymore. But it's still going on, like right here in Atlanta. I heard a stat.
You all are more expert at this than me, so feel free to correct me. But I've heard that there are more people in slavery today than there were at the peak of the African slave trade. Which is an absolutely incredible stat to me because like you said, it it goes underneath the surface and it's not even something we necessarily notice. And I think that COVID has really changed how it's happening as well, right? A lot of online It's kind of moved from being even visible a little bit on the street to now being very invisible online.
what I've learned over the years Doing the work is where poverty and wealth kind of coincide. Unfortunately, it's like a breeding ground for exploitation because people are trying to survive. It's I'm I have to pay rent, so we gotta figure this out.
Sorry, Johnny, you have to go do this thing so that our family can eat today. And unfortunately, not a lot of people talk about the familial trafficking process. Portion of this, but that is absolutely, unfortunately, a reality. We talk about gang-related trafficking. And again, peer-to-peer trafficking, it does take on many forms, but it often is hidden right in plain sight.
Yeah. Along those lines, a story that stands out to me when Sandra and I had started Haven Atlanta at the Salvation Army church, the Kroc Center, She had me share with the youth group there about just what trafficking was and the work we were doing. And afterwards, two of the girls came up to me and they said, you know, Hillary, what you just talked to us about, I think that's happening to my sister. And I asked them some more questions, and it came to light that. She had run away from home with a boyfriend, quote, who was actually trafficking her out of hotels around the Atlanta airport.
And because the sisters realized what was going on, we were able to get her out of the situation and get her the help that she needed. And she ended up starting to come to the drop-in center because she had just turned 18.
So technically, she was an adult. The reality is Most of these girls don't even know that it is trafficking. They think this is just my boyfriend, and I'm helping out, and they don't see it for what it is. And so I think we have to be. aware and I think talking about it with young people is important because I mean that just showed me that you know having those kind of conversations can help save lives and bring things to light.
We pray that you're enjoying and being blessed by this conversation. Uh We're going to take one more ad break and we'll be right back. I'm Christy Graham, host of the show On the Ground with Samaritan's Purse. And I recently attended an infectious disease training and donned personal protective equipment alongside our staff who are preparing to serve at one of our Ebola treatment centers in the DRC. That's really putting into perspective what our teams do.
Listen to this behind the scenes episode by searching On the Ground with Samaritan's Purse, wherever you get your podcasts. Again, that's on the ground with Samaritan's Purse. Education is one of the things that we're doing as far as fighting human trafficking. What else are we doing? What does the work actually look like?
And how are we helping restore people's lives? There's some really exciting things happening around the world within the Salvation Army and what they're doing. And just being a part of conversations where, like in Africa, they're working in schools. In Mexico, I was part of one of their meetings and There's a huge risk of young people being kidnapped off the streets, and so they're doing a lot of prevention work with that. You know, in Canada, they're doing a lot of work in the prisons with women in Europe.
With many of the refugees coming from Ukraine, they're really doing a lot of prevention as well. To help with that. And in India, they are doing stuff in the Red Light District in Mumbai, and they're like training women with new skills. I am excited to be part of such a great organization that is working so hard in this field and like was hearing earlier this year about their repatriation efforts that they're doing in getting people back to their countries after they have been trafficked. I feel it was just so grateful to be like part of an organization that this was part of something that they started so many years ago, and now they're still working in all these countries around the world and really making such brilliant efforts because they care, you know?
And so. O overseas I can say so much is happening and it's exciting. If somebody's listening to this and they feel like they are recognizing that they're being trafficked or that somebody close to them is being trafficked, what should they do? That's a great question. There's a few organizations I got to work for, Freedom Collective, for a couple of years.
So I don't know if we can put their information in the show notes, but they have an emergency hotline 24-7 where if a survivor wants to get to a safe house at any point, they will provide transportation there. Healing and recovery for survivors is years long, but there has to be an emergency response piece because they need that crisis stabilization. And oftentimes, they're experiencing depression, anxiety, PTSD, mental health.
Sometimes they need stabilization, things like that.
So these organizations can help with that. And so I would recommend calling Freedom Collective or Safe House Project is another national organization that can help find placement for survivors immediately because that's really. needed and important. And I did want to mention just that the Salvation Army really does have a rich history in fighting trafficking. And back in 1900, when they opened the Salvation Army in Japan, there were these brothels with thousands and thousands of women being exploited.
The army wanted to do something about it. They found out there was actually a law that said that they could leave if they wanted to leave, but the women in the brothels didn't know that. They were told there was debt bondage and they could never leave. And so they actually translated the law and printed thousands of copies of it, went into these brothels where Salvation Army pastors were beaten, hospitalized, experienced violence, but they kept going in to tell the women that if they wanted to leave, they could leave. Eventually, thousands of women were able to leave those brothels.
And the army actually, because of that, started opening up rescue homes, providing safe places for survivors. And so that's a part of our history. And my hope and prayer is that we continue along those lines. That we are a place that advocates for survivors, that provides safe spaces, that will be a light in those dark places. Dear God.
Um We know that the gospel calls believers not only to expose darkness, but to walk alongside those trying to get out of it. And I pray, God, that you would continue to mold us and shape us, to help us to learn to do good. and to seek justice. And the light of survivors and serving those who really are in need. I pray that we can sound the alarm and shine light in the deepest of the darkness, God.
And I thank you, God, for giving us you, because you are the light and you will do it. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. The Salvation Army's mission, doing the most good, means helping people with material and spiritual needs. You become a part of this mission every time you give to the Salvation Army.
Visit SalvationArmyusa.org to offer your support. You can subscribe to Words of Life on your favorite podcast store or visit SalvationArmysoundcast.org. Join us next time for the Salvation Army's Words of Life. These are the worst. These are the words of life.
These are the words. These are the words. These are the words of life. Thanks so much for listening to Words of Life. We want to thank the team at Life Audio for their partnership with us on the show.
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