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Jennisue Jessen's Fight for Change and Survivor Empowerment
0:0037:41
What if you could transform your darkest experiences into a powerful force for change? Jenniesue Jessen, an inspiring advocate and survivor, joins us to share her harrowing yet uplifting journey from a childhood marked by exploitation to becoming a leader in the counter-trafficking movement. Annie reveals how her faith became a beacon of hope amidst years of abuse by her grandfather, and how a life-altering pregnancy at seventeen gave her the courage to escape and seek help. Her story uncovers the intricate dynamics that often prevent families from intervening, emphasizing the urgent need for awareness and action in combating human trafficking.
In this compelling conversation, we explore Jennie's healing journey and her impactful work in shaping U.S. counter-trafficking policies, particularly her efforts to address the potent link between pornography and trafficking. She shares heartwarming success stories from Compass 31, an organization she passionately supports, highlighting the transformative journey of survivors who are now helping others. Jennie's insights remind us of the importance of sensitive discussions around trauma, the critical role of survivor-led organizations, and the increased vulnerability during major events. This episode is not just a story of survival but a testament to resilience and the power of advocacy in the fight against human trafficking.
Let me know what you think of this episode?
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Jennisue’s website
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Thank You for Listening, I hope you enjoyed this episode and that it encouraged you. Please like, share, and leave a review.
Chapters
00:00 - Annie Sue Jensen's Counter-Trafficking Journey
12:16 - Healing, Advocacy, and Policy Influence
22:57 - Empowerment and Awareness in Counter-Trafficking
Transcript
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Hello everyone, thank you again for joining us on another episode of the Dorsure Show.
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Today we have a special guest with us.
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Her name is Annie Sue Jensen.
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She has over 25 years of personal experience and professional involvement in the counter-trafficking movement.
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She has gathered intimate knowledge of the deaths of trauma survivors in DOR.
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Having been sold into the sex trade at a very young age, she has seen the darkest corners of humanity.
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However, rather than letting those experiences define her, they have ignited a passion within her to contribute to cultural and systematic change in this sphere.
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At Compass 31, her heart's break for those who have been victimized by human trafficking, and we firmly believe in the inherent worth and dignity of every individual.
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The mission is to fight this crime through prevention, restoration, leadership, development.
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She aims to offer transformative hope and healing to those trafficked for sex or labor and prevent this crime from perpetrating through the Global Education Initiative.
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Thank you so much for coming on the show today, janice Yu.
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I'm so happy to share time with you and your audience.
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Thank you so much, absolutely.
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Well, I'd like to open up the show with an icebreaker question.
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And, besides what you do, what is your biggest?
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passion geek out on brain science and the fact that we are fearfully and wonderfully made in the image of our creator and how that manifests in how our bodies and minds are wired to navigate life in a broken, fallen world.
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So when I want to unwind, I open up textbooks about neurobiology and brain science.
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Okay, Can you give us a little bit more background on your life and what you went through?
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As I read in your bio, it says that you were, you know, kidnapped or sex trafficked at a very young age.
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Yes, I was trafficked from the age of four until 17.
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And, like many people actually, my trafficking happened at the hands of a family member, so my grandfather was my primary perpetrator and he started selling me to other men for sex at various levels of vulnerabilities.
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My household had addiction and some domestic violence that made me susceptible and I spent a lot of time with my grandfather, who had a perverse love for little girls and was a very powerful guy, big fish in a small pond.
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So, yeah, he started selling me to other men for sex at the age of four and that's actually in the darkness and brutality of that is actually where I met Jesus the first time.
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That very first day I had spent all day at work at a train station with my grandfather, spoiled, rotten by everyone working there.
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But late afternoon came and when we left we went to meet one of the men from the train station and he gave my grandfather some money and then he came to take from me what he had paid for.
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But after the unthinkable had happened, my grandfather wrapped me in a blanket, put me in the backseat of the car to take me home Again, a lot of individuals who are being trafficked are living in home environments, they're going to school, they're going to church, they're in the community.
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He wrapped me up, put me in the car to take me home and put in a cassette tape playing one of his favorite songs, which is an old gospel hymn how Great Thou Art.
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And as the sun was setting, jesus came for me in the backseat of the car and in my memory I have this very real sense of Him holding me on His lap and whispering to me I've got you, baby, I'm big enough for this and I won't let you go.
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And he didn't.
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He continued to meet me in the darkest places Throughout my growing up years.
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In kindergarten I was praying every night that he would just let me die.
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In second grade I sat in church on Sunday morning behind the man who paid to rape me the night before.
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By the time I got to be 17, I thought my only hope for escape would be to complete my own suicide.
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But again he met me there and intervened.
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And the day after a failed suicide attempt, right before my 18th birthday, I found out that I was pregnant and I often say God you send, to send a son.
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That saved my life, because with that pregnancy awoken me this mama bear instinct.
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I had never been successful in fighting back on my own behalf, but now I had an innocent baby to protect, and with that came the courage to finally disclose to a counselor enough about what was happening for her to intervene and to get both myself and my child to safety.
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With you know, with your experience, with your story, and with you know probably hundreds and maybe even thousands of other stories, and you even mentioned that you know a lot of this happened in home and in family.
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Yeah, how come there's not more you know intervening from other family members or other individual adults that you know to?
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stop this?
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That's a great question.
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I wish I had the answer to that.
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Unfortunately I don't.
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I think in my situation, a lot of what was happening which is not uncommon is my dad was an alcoholic and my mom was addicted to my dad, and so when my household was in crisis, they would send me three hours away to my grandparents' house and in all fairness you know hindsight's 20-20, I think they really believed they were doing what was best.
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The house was in disarray and there was, you know, alcoholism and violence, so they sent me away, not understanding really the depravity of my grandfather.
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But there were clues all along and whether it is shame or dysfunction or just an incapacity to respond, for example, in kindergarten we had to draw pictures for Thanksgiving and we were supposed to draw a picture of our family, and I drew my whole family like everybody else.
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I'm an artist at heart, that was easy for me, but I drew my grandfather, two to three times bigger than everybody else in the family, and my grandfather was the only one that appeared in my picture, completely naked and with an erection.
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And so my kindergarten teacher saw the picture and called my mom.
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My mom came to pick me up at school, saw the picture was mortified.
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She was so angry she tore up the picture.
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She scolded me, she said we don't draw pictures like that.
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But that was the end of the discussion.
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So there were a couple of instances like that over the years that coulda shoulda woulda known.
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You know, if you were in your right mind, if you were functional, if you were in a healthy environment, perhaps she would have been equipped to intervene.
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But a lot of us, and especially where I was growing up in the Midwest you just don't rock the boat.
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You keep your mouth shut.
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Family secrets are family secrets for a reason and you maintain the status quo and even with that picture, the teacher never said hey, what's going on?
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Never spoke to you in private, never went, you know, to other higher ups in the school system.
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She didn't.
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That was in the 70s, that would have been 1977, that I was in kindergarten and her I don't know what mandatory reporting looked like in Missouri in the 70s, but she did what she thought she needed to do.
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She called my mom and, you know, I think, assumed that my mom would intervene in a way that was appropriate.
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And my mom again.
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She was doing the best she could in the midst of a chaotic life and wasn't able to intervene.
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How did your story and your life shape you to wanting to combat sex trafficking and what you do now.
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That's a great question.
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I'll give you an honest answer.
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Honestly, it was a push and pull.
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God twisted my arm.
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I don't know if you've ever wrestled with God, but I've never won that wrestling match.
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Both my husband and I felt that at some point God would use my story in a redemptive way that helped empower other people who had suffered similar things.
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Empower other people who had suffered similar things.
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But when he called me to go back into the dark, he had rescued me from the dark.
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I came to know him in such deep and intimate and healing ways, and when he called me to go back, I was mad about it.
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I thought what kind of audacity is that, that you would pull me out of the dark and then expect me to go back?
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But really, what he was doing was he was extending this glorious invitation, he was giving me a front-row seat to watching him do the work.
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He sets captives free.
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That's always been his agenda, that's always been his prerogative, and so, basically, his calling for us, my husband and I, to start our international counter trafficking agency.
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Was Jesus going?
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Come on, baby, come sit right here and watch, watch redemption unfold again and again and again, and it's been a beautiful and a wild ride we were.
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I often say we were born breech like God just dropped this bloody, squawking miracle in my lap.
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But first, I didn't have a plan, I didn't have the funding, I didn't have the facility.
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I just said yes, and that was in June 2011.
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Now, 13 years later, we have a prevention program operating in 43 countries and restoration work in five countries.
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So he's just done exponentially beyond what I ever would have dreamed possible.
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What was it like with your relationship with Christ during those especially the teenage years?
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And you know you're still dealing with what you dealt with.
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How did you wrestle with that and say, god, why are you still allowing me to go through this?
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You know it is.
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I think I don't think it's unique to somebody who's experienced trafficking.
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I think every human on the planet at some point will wrestle with.
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Wait a minute, is God good and is God powerful?
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Is he loving and is he powerful?
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And as a teenager I had been invited to church.
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I heard the gospel, I gave my life to the Lord, I prayed to receive Christ, I was baptized, had this whole spiritual transaction.
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But as I started reading scripture, I really wrestled with okay, wait, I gave my life to God, but still my exploitation was continuing.
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To God, but still my exploitation was continuing.
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And actually, age 15 through 17, it got pretty significantly more violent than some of the things I had experienced as a child.
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And so how do I make sense of I gave my life to the Lord and yet here I am still being exploited.
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I prayed, I needed a savior.
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Hey, where are you and I?
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You know, 15, 16, 17,.
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Very little theological understanding, a whole lot of life experience of violence.
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I thought either God is all good and he hates what's happening to me, but he's powerless to stop it, or God is all powerful and he could stop it, but he doesn't care to.
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And it was years before I could really reconcile that.
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But one of the critical pieces of the puzzle was years into my journey.
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I was working on memorizing some verses in scripture and I was in the book of Ephesians and I got to Ephesians 1, 4, and it says for he chose us, that's God.
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God chose us in him, before the creation of the world, to be holy and blameless in his sight.
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In love, he predestined us to be adopted as his own.
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And I thought wait, a minute, wait, wait, wait, wait.
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The creator of the universe, before he created anything, the eternal one outside of time, before he flipped on the lights, before he separated the water from the land or the light from the dark, he looked through time and he went Jenny, sue, that one she's mine, she's holy, she's blameless, she will be adopted, loved as my own.
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And when I was memorizing that verse, everything that turned upside down when I was four years old in my world started to write itself, because Jesus gave me this very clear image, almost like watching my whole life in fast forward, of all these traumatic scenes, and in every one Jesus was there, holding me, protecting me, loving me.
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And that became proof to me that God is both all good and all powerful Because again and again and again he met me in the dark and he kept me together.
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He kept me in one piece.
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I had physical injuries, I still have scars, but mentally, spiritually whole.
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He kept me whole and I've written a book about my experience and it's titled the Lucky One for that very reason, because he met me in the dark and that became proof that he is all good and all powerful.
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Amen.
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Do you know the name?
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Michael Bartel?
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I don't think I do.
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Okay, I bring it up only because he does something similar to what you do, and I believe he's based out of Las Vegas, nevada, or at least he was.
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I'll look him up.
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I'm always, always, collaborating.
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You know, no person is an island unto themselves.
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Right?
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We can reach much further when we join hands and extend each other's impact.
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So I'll look him up.
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You have done some work with the government or you know policies.
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You know creating new policies.
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What have you done in that realm and what did that look like?
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Trump just before he left office to serve a two-year term on what's called the US Advisory Council on Human Trafficking, and the US Advisory Council is a panel of between 10 and 14 survivor leaders.
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People who have personal experience of trafficking bring their knowledge forward, and our task is to regularly meet with the senior policy advisors to the president's cabinet exploring our US federal counter-trafficking laws and regulations are in existence, and then every year we publish a report specifically to those agencies about how we might navigate counter-trafficking in a more effective way.
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So I was appointed by President Trump but served my two years under President Biden, so I kind of got to straddle both administrations and it was an honor and a privilege.
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Much of what I learned as a child was that my survival depended on my silence and my submission.
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So to be appointed by one of the most powerful political leaders in the world to sit on a council and inform federal counter-trafficking policy I was regularly going toe-to-toe with advisors from the DOJ and Homeland Security and Department of Education about policies.
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I was given a platform to use my voice and affect change, and that was an incredibly powerful and healing experience for me that I am profoundly grateful for.
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Is there a policy that you can talk about that you helped initiate?
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One of the things that I was really passionate about in the two years that I was serving was the connection between pornography and trafficking.
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And there's, you know, if you did a Venn diagram, there's certainly one circle would be pornography and one circle would be sex trafficking, but there is an intrinsic overlap, and it's a pretty significant overlap because pornography is functionally just the marketing department for sex trafficking, and if you look at what sex trafficking is, there's an exchange of money or something of value for sex.
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That's certainly how we define prostitution as well.
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Pornography is just prostitution with a camera in the room.
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So there is an individual who's being paid for sex, which, across the board in the US, except a few counties here and there, primarily in Nevada, prostitution is still illegal.
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But if you put a camera in the room and you pay an individual for sex, then suddenly it's freedom of speech.
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It is impossible to tell, based on our screens, which individuals are there by choice and which ones are there because of force, fraud or coercion.
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And if they're performing on the basis of force, fraud or coercion, then it automatically becomes sex trafficking.
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And so the policies that I was really passionate about advocating for was more stringent restrictions and intervention in pornography, and especially the child sex abuse material.
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What once upon a time was called child pornography now has been labeled child sex abuse material, and so I was really advocating passionately for the government to act on laws that are on our books and have been argued all the way to the Supreme Court and upheld by the Supreme Court, but are overlooked and not implemented across the US.
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Why do you think that is that they're not implemented in that realm?
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Why do you think that is that they're not?
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implemented in that realm.
00:21:29.462 --> 00:21:35.932
Comfort, universal guilt, I mean they're well over, well over.
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It's reported 67% of church leaders regularly engage in pornography, viewing pornography.
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At least 36% of women admit to regularly engaging with pornography.
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And when it's so pervasive, if we make a big deal out of it, then we're all guilty, and so it's easier to say it's a victimless crime, it's art, it's you know, who are you to judge what these people are doing or say that it's not healthy or not helpful?
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But when we look at the statistics, the outflow of the performers, the individuals that are on the screen, and how those line up to individuals who are prostituted and individuals who are trafficked, the long-term damage to health, to emotional well-being, to mental health, is staggering.
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But it's easier to just brush it off as boys will be boys no harm, no foul kind of thing.
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Is there a success story that you can share with us that you've been involved in?
00:22:52.126 --> 00:22:57.405
A success story that I've been involved in, you know.
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Oh gosh, where do I start?
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I got a message just this last week.
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That's where I'll start, from one of the girls that was in our program when we were founded in Thailand and she initially our program in Thailand.
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My husband and I were providing foster care to teenage mama babysits so teenage girls who were coming out of exploitation and were pregnant or had babies as a result of their exploitation, and we raised mamas and babies together.
00:23:35.471 --> 00:23:44.258
And, as you might imagine, foster care has its own level of drama, but we were working with teenage girls.
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Teenage girls have their own unique version of drama.
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Our teenage girls were mothers who conceived in violence, so that's next level, and we and speak English as my first language.
00:23:56.510 --> 00:24:30.013
Our girls were from the northern hill tribe region in Thailand, so there was all this complexity, but one of the girls that came in struggled quite a bit to integrate and work towards healing and it has been a beautiful, beautiful thing to watch.
00:24:30.013 --> 00:24:40.786
There were moments that she was on the fence back and forth, one foot in, one foot, being tempted to return to exploitation, and that looking and feeling like it might be empowering.
00:24:40.786 --> 00:24:44.513
But I just got an email from her earlier this week.
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And not only is she free, she's been working in another nonprofit in her region of the world caring for vulnerable moms and babies, and she's now in the process of starting her own nonprofit to be more effective and strategic in counter-trafficking in the region of the world where she lives.
00:25:06.387 --> 00:25:11.273
Okay, as a survivor yourself, how do you navigate?
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Discussing around trauma and resilience?
00:25:15.518 --> 00:25:27.836
Okay, ensuring that your message resonates with the broad audience while remaining sensitive to those who have experienced similar hardships.
00:25:29.821 --> 00:25:34.712
You know I lean heavily on Holy Spirit.
00:25:34.712 --> 00:25:40.808
I pray always in the back of my mind when I'm sharing my story.
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Obviously it is triggering to some people and I can only like bubble wrap it so much.
00:25:47.838 --> 00:25:55.503
When you're talking about human trafficking, there's a lot of pervasive violence right At the same time.
00:25:55.503 --> 00:26:01.787
I think the key is for me when I'm navigating these conversations.
00:26:01.787 --> 00:26:14.173
One of my mottos or policies is trying to slow down to the speed of love, and that means just being fully present with who I'm with and watching their reaction and and listening.
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I call it holy listening listening to what they're sharing and not trying to impose my solutions like this is what you should do or this is the method that you will find healing, because I don't know how Jesus is going to bring them to freedom and healing but to listen authentically and deeply and prayerfully and asking questions like how can I love and serve you today?
00:26:41.306 --> 00:26:42.241
This is really terrible.
00:26:42.241 --> 00:26:43.385
This is really terrible.
00:26:43.385 --> 00:26:54.673
This is really hard and I've experienced some similar things and I don't know what your answer will be, but I can hold you in prayer tenderly and fiercely.
00:26:54.673 --> 00:26:55.865
What do you need from me?
00:26:55.865 --> 00:26:58.346
And maybe they need solutions.
00:26:58.346 --> 00:27:02.269
Likely they just need to be heard and maybe they need solutions.
00:27:02.269 --> 00:27:03.290
Likely, they just need to be heard.
00:27:03.290 --> 00:27:16.617
And if I can give space for them to be heard, then they not only find the power in their own voice but they start feeling heard and loved by the one who created them and who has never left and forsaken them.
00:27:37.582 --> 00:27:39.364
Your organization Conference 31, is that?
00:27:39.364 --> 00:27:46.214
A faith-based organization where I believe the love of Christ compels me.
00:27:46.214 --> 00:27:50.089
That's where I live and move and have my being.
00:27:50.089 --> 00:27:55.492
However, we don't proselytize or force anybody to convert.
00:27:55.492 --> 00:27:57.303
They're not our resources.
00:27:57.303 --> 00:28:04.234
Our program, our staff is not dependent on somebody making a profession of faith.
00:28:04.234 --> 00:28:06.267
Our program is holistic.
00:28:06.267 --> 00:28:30.471
We provide access to mental health resources, therapy, dental work, medical care, school, all of those things and one of those pieces is regularly the staff and the residents meeting for devotions and prayer together, and we facilitate it in a very trauma-informed, invitational way.
00:28:30.471 --> 00:28:33.410
Nobody is forced but everybody is invited.
00:28:33.410 --> 00:28:51.791
And once the residents find out that what we're doing is because we're compelled by the love of Christ and they hear other survivor stories who have been transformed by the love of Christ, then they get curious and they start leaning in.
00:28:53.701 --> 00:29:10.190
I heard that there's a statistic that during the Super Bowl, that during the Super Bowl, that that's one of the biggest days of the year where sex trafficking happened.
00:29:10.250 --> 00:29:12.114
Why do you think that is?
00:29:12.114 --> 00:29:23.792
You know, we make a big deal out of the Super Bowl because it's arguably the largest sports event in the US, is our Super Bowl every year, but it's not just specifically the Super Bowl.
00:29:23.792 --> 00:29:35.007
It's and this sounds icky, but it's wherever you get a bunch of men together a bunch of men traveling, drinking, celebrating.
00:29:35.007 --> 00:29:52.924
It can be a fishing competition in Wyoming, it can be the Super Bowl, it can be NBA games, it can be college games Wherever you get a large number of men together.
00:29:52.924 --> 00:29:57.028
Trafficking is based on supply and demand.
00:29:57.028 --> 00:30:34.633
When you get a bunch of guys celebrating and drunk together, there's going to be a lot of demand, for what happens here stays here, and so the traffickers are going to bring in individuals that they can exploit their vulnerabilities and meet the demand with the current trends of sex trafficking, and how would you tell my listeners to also stay informed and stay up to date about this horrific thing that's going on?
00:30:36.599 --> 00:30:51.906
I would say, find trafficking, counter-trafficking organizations, specifically ones that are survivor-led, because those of us that are survivors and leading organizations, we have our ear to the ground in a different way.
00:30:51.906 --> 00:30:56.490
We speak the native language of trafficking and traffickers.
00:30:56.490 --> 00:31:07.704
There's a lot of great organizations, though, so I would encourage your followers to find organizations not just mine, mine's, compass31.org.
00:31:07.704 --> 00:31:14.372
You can find me anywhere, but there's a lot of good organizations, and they're always posting on social media.
00:31:14.372 --> 00:31:18.670
They're in the news, they're posting what's happening in your region of the world.
00:31:18.670 --> 00:31:23.821
A lot of states, a lot of counties, have their own developing task force.
00:31:23.821 --> 00:31:51.596
There's one here, where I live, in Colorado, that, every month, a collaborative of about 60 different individuals and organizations come together and talk about what's happening in our region and how do we get involved in a strategic way, and it's a collaborative of medical professionals and law enforcement and NGOs and faith-based communities and concerned citizens all coming together to figure out how we can solve this problem.
00:32:11.480 --> 00:32:18.116
What encouragement would you give to my listeners, whether they're just here to listen to a podcast episode, or maybe even someone that's you know, that's been hit and trafficked?
00:32:18.116 --> 00:32:19.319
I would say that trauma does not define us.
00:32:19.319 --> 00:32:29.948
It equips us, that you are made in the image of God, one who has never left or forsaken you for a moment, despite the darkest dark circumstances.
00:32:29.948 --> 00:32:34.040
He wants to love you towards freedom.
00:32:34.040 --> 00:32:39.230
And freedom isn't just possible, it's entirely probable.
00:32:39.230 --> 00:32:43.038
So for those that have experienced trauma, I would encourage them that way.
00:32:43.038 --> 00:32:44.457
For for those that have experienced trauma, I would encourage them that way.
00:32:44.457 --> 00:32:50.046
For other people who are just concerned, I would say do what I do, slow down to the speed of love.
00:32:50.046 --> 00:32:51.586
See the person in front of you.
00:32:51.586 --> 00:32:58.278
There's hurting people all around us, whether it's domestic violence or cancer or a death in the family.
00:32:58.278 --> 00:33:06.290
There's wounded people all around who desperately need to encounter the love of Christ.
00:33:08.282 --> 00:33:09.712
Are there signs that?
00:33:09.712 --> 00:33:21.351
I know I should end with that question, but are there signs that we can look for whether it's a young child, teenager, maybe even an adult?
00:33:21.351 --> 00:33:24.647
Are there signs that we can look for to see?
00:33:24.647 --> 00:33:27.888
Hey, this person may be in trouble.
00:33:27.888 --> 00:33:31.971
This person may be a sex trafficking victim.
00:33:34.381 --> 00:33:36.888
Yes and no.
00:33:36.888 --> 00:33:39.559
Yes, absolutely.
00:33:39.559 --> 00:33:45.384
It requires us stopping our busy scurrying and scrolling.
00:33:45.384 --> 00:33:47.924
We're always scurrying from one place to the next.
00:33:47.924 --> 00:33:48.665
I got to get here.
00:33:48.665 --> 00:33:49.425
I got to get there.
00:33:49.425 --> 00:33:50.366
I got to pick up the kids.
00:33:50.366 --> 00:33:50.906
I got to see the signs.
00:33:50.906 --> 00:34:07.560
We have to be willing to put our phone away and stop overbooking ourselves.
00:34:07.560 --> 00:34:11.106
Leave margin in our lives so that we can see the person in front of us.
00:34:11.106 --> 00:34:18.184
The signs that you can look for in my case, I was a straight-A student.
00:34:18.184 --> 00:34:18.525
I loved school.
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