One Mom Taking a Stand Against Human Trafficking

Because Every Family Should Be Free to Be Together

Have you ever heard of human trafficking and the heartbreak it’s causing families all over the globe?

Have you ever wished you could do something about it but felt powerless against the scope of it?

Maybe, like me, you might think you’re disqualified to join the fight against human trafficking and child exploitation. We may not be victims, survivors, or mothers of someone who has suffered. We may not even be close to this issue at all.

But just maybe, like me, you care about the people it affects because they are humans – because it could have been us, because it could have been our children, because it’s happening to someone’s children every single day – children just like our own.

I’m a regular mom of two little boys who travels and writes and works for a nonprofit. I’m a behind-the-scenes lady who prefers to go on wild adventures in obscure places with my kids rather than share a piece of my writing with a large audience, speak on a stage, or lead a conference workshop. In my everyday, regular life, I stay at home most days working on my computer, helping my kids with their schoolwork, making meals, and washing dishes. Most days, I don’t even talk on the phone to anyone outside of my family, and I certainly don’t speak out to the global community about something as important as human trafficking.

But I’m also not afraid to do those things if I need to.

And now, I need to. We all need to.

Recently, I wrote about the first time I ever heard the term human trafficking back in 2008 when I was living overseas and how I did nothing for way too long. (Read the article here at Best Self Media or listen to the podcast here.) Now is the time to act, because in the 12 years since I first heard the term human trafficking, the terror it brings to families has grown exponentially all over the world. Now we can do something about it. In America alone, almost 230,000 people have contacted the National Human Trafficking hotline since 2007, and there have been 51,919 human trafficking cases reported to them since that time, not to mention the thousands of reports that happen on the state level each year as well.

What if we had stopped it back in 2008? How many lives wouldhave been saved?

That is a question I still ask myself today. In response, I have suddenly found myself becoming a spokesperson in my everyday life for anti-trafficking – the very thing I should have become all those years ago on the other side of the world when I thought the problem was a myth.

It’s about time I stood up and said something about this thing I care so deeply about – even if it doesn’t seem to fit into my life in a logical way.

You see, I don’t normally write about sobering realities or horrific injustices going on around the globe.

I’m not a journalist or an investigative reporter.

I’m just a mom with a family travel website who wants to equip parents with everything they need to spend more time with their families in a way that makes their hearts sing.

And I didn’t even really want to do that just a few short months ago. I didn’t want to share my writing with the world at all. I had been writing my entire life, filling journal after journal year after year, tucking all the pages away in the attic for someone else to dig out someday. I would come back and read through them one day, I thought, and maybe even write a book or something, but not now – it wasn’t time.

Until it was time.

Here’s how it happened.

In the winter of 2018, I went back to graduate school after finishing my undergraduate degree 14 years prior. During my very first semester in the program, I learned that I would need to select a topic for my thesis, something I felt strongly about and wouldn’t mind investing two years of my life into. Right away, I chose human trafficking awareness, prevention, and intervention research. Later on in the program, I waffled and switched my topic to something a little less controversial and heart-wrenching, but my advisor convinced me to switch it back right away. “There are topics everyone researches,” she said, “and this isn’t one of them. I can’t wait to see what your research reveals.”

In the spring of 2019, I decided to the next step on my dream to become a published author. Everything came rushing together like a whirlwind, pushing and pulling me into writing for other moms on this platform called Togetherness Redefined, and suddenly my writing was out there.

Now, I work in stolen moments mornings, nights, and most weekends to keep the platform going.

And as I write about ways middle-class families can control their busyness and carve out more quality time for adventures with the people they love most, my heart continually aches for the families who don’t have that privilege.

My soul sits heavy in my chest for the mom whose daughter ran away from home at age 15 and now lives on the streets working at night in a life she would never have chosen, but she’s too ashamed, too manipulated, too addicted to drugs to find her way home. That mom can’t have quality time with her child right now no matter how many togetherness tips and how-to articles she reads. She would do anything to have her baby back home, but she doesn’t know how to get her back.

My eyes fill with tears as I think about the teenager who left her home country to earn money as a model or actress or waitress or secretary with an employment agency that turned out to be a drug-pumping trafficking ring forcing her to sell her body if she ever wants to see her family alive again. She’s trapped, and her family has no idea how to help her come home again or even where she is exactly, and they have no resources to rescue her even if they knew what was being done to her.

My adrenaline flows and my pulse quickens as I think about the young boys and girls, strong young men and women, smart and talented in their own right, who came to America on someone’s promise for a good job at a chicken farm, potato farm, pecan grove, apple orchard and found themselves in forced labor, not free to leave, not able to do anything else, with no identification or permit to live and work freely in this country and no way to go back home without severe consequences.

As soon as I realized that this platform would have an online shop element, I knew right away that I had to do something to help shine a light on human trafficking and what we can all do to stop it. So I started small – a mantra I tend to cling to when things feel daunting.

And then, as I was sharing my passion about fighting human trafficking with a writer friend this summer, she leaned over the table, coffee in hand, and spoke a question that shook my soul,

“What can I, we, all of us, do about it?”

It's an issue that is real, horrific, and senseless, but it’s an issue we can all do something about.

Here’s a glimpse into the reality that so many young people are facing right now from one of the nonprofits currently working to provide long-term housing for victims.

“For a moment, imagine that you were trafficked at 13 years old and sold to a pimp. From that time forward your body was sold 10 times per night for the next six years. You would have been essentially raped over 21,000 times before you turned 20 years old. During that time you would have received many random beatings. You learned none of the normal lessons that people receive during this formative time. Your concept of social structure would be significantly skewed. Your self-image would be significantly broken. You have become addicted to drugs. You now suffer from PTSD along with other psychological conditions that have not been diagnosed. You have had no functional community for the last six years.

Now, imagine one day you were freed.

Where would you go?”

(from sacredrootsfarm.org)

Clearly, the problem is big, but the truth is that human trafficking can end all over the globe in a matter of months if everyone who reads this article takes a few simple steps and shares this article with a few people who also take these steps and the cycle repeats itself a few thousand times.

Here’s a taste of the steps I shared with Best Self Magazine:

Step 1 – Don’t purchase sex or pornography. Recognize the buyers as the problem.

The movies we watch, the music we listen to, the friends we support – all of us have an opportunity to speak loudly with our wallets.

Step 2 – Don’t purchase food or clothes produced by the trafficking industry.

Buy local and steer clear of big box stores that sell food and clothes not ethically sourced. Look for handmade, fair trade, locally produced items instead.

Step 3 – Learn more about the issue.

Do your own research. Start with the details in our Best Self article and go down the bunny hole for a few nights or more. It’s far more valuable than an hour or two spent on Instagram.

Step 4 – Talk about it.

Don’t be afraid to bring it up with a friend. Don’t stop talking about it until it’s no longer a reality.

Step 5 – Look for the signs.

Carry around the human trafficking hotline number in your car. Store it in your phone. Keep your eyes peeled at gas stations, in airports, while you go about your normal day. If we’re all watching, chances are we’ll start seeing the men and women who need rescuing and we can be ready to call for help.

Click on over to that article at Best Self Magazine here to find all of the details along with links and resources to help you make them happen, and listen to the podcast here.

Where is your place in the fight against human trafficking?

Which friends will you share the article with today?

When you do, you're becoming a huge part of the fight against human trafficking.

If you want to know more about this issue and how you can help, visit polarisproject.org, comment below, or hop into our email group and send me a private message.

I'd love to talk to you about it!