It's Worse Than the Movie: the Banal Systemic Horror of Child Sex Trafficking

Sound of Freedom is an action thriller starring Jim Caviezel and directed by Alejandro Monteverde about a real-life person named Tim Ballard, a former agent for the Department of Homeland Security who is the founder of Operation Underground Railroad, or O.U.R. The film is a fictionalized account of this man rescuing two Honduran children from a Colombian sex-trafficking ring.

I could forgive the movie if it only wildly embellished otherwise true events about one man’s legitimate efforts to tackle a real-life crime against humanity.

Sadly, this film is being used to promote QAnon-style conspiracy theories and, in the process, misinform the public about a very serious problem.

I have only read reviews and plot summaries. I will not give this film any money.

From what it sounds like, the film is reasonably well done and directed, able to hit the right emotional spots for the audience.

Which makes the falsehoods about child sex trafficking it promotes that much more dangerous. 

The Reality about Child Sex Trafficking

Unfortunately, the selling of children to be raped is a real systemic horror. I decided to use this phrasing—systemic horror—because at the end of the day, that’s what it is.

If anything, the reality of this atrocity is worse than depicted in Hollywood.

Most child sex traffickers don’t abduct children from Target parking lots or go after kids with a regular support network. Instead, these traffickers typically go after kids already in serious trouble: kids who are for one reason or another homeless, in the foster care or juvenile criminal justice system, kids who have run away from home, or kids who otherwise have no one to look out for them. Kids who on a systemic level are considered disposable.

To the surprise of no one, Black, Latino, and LGBT children are the most vulnerable to this horror.

Additionally, your typical child sex trafficker (at first, anyway) relies on manipulation and posing as a significant other or other type of support to entrap the child. Keep in mind that it’s remarkably easy for an adult to manipulate a child, especially if that child has no support or stability in their life. Once the child is within the trafficker’s grip, they turn on the kid and, for a price, sell them to be sexually assaulted.

On top of being already vulnerable, most victims of child sex trafficking are teenagers, not prepubescent children. Often, because the teens are still children, they don’t understand the reality of what is going on, just like many kids who are victims of rape.

Most disgusting of all, quite a few of the children who are prepubescent and are sold for assault are done so by their own parents to get drugs or drug money. It’s often family members or otherwise trusted authority figures who violate a young child’s trust in this manner, not a random stranger.

As for the child sex traffickers themselves, there is no “typical trafficker” from a demographic perspective. They can be of any gender, race, ethnic background, or socioeconomic status. But what they all have in common is high emotional intelligence compared to their child victims, somewhat decent management skills, and a deformed conscience.

The same goes for “buyers,” though they tend to be men with disposable income of any kind.

How to Actually Tackle This Systemic Horror

Putting the monsters in this industry behind bars (or in the ground) is only a part (albeit significant) of what needs to be done.

The systemic problems that allow these kids to be exploited in this manner need to be addressed as well. More kids in the foster care system need to be adopted into supportive and stable homes, and, in the meantime, these kids need a far more robust social support system in terms of food and academic and emotional care.

Additionally, I would strongly encourage prompt intervention for at-risk kids at an early age. The earlier the problems get tackled by a qualified professional, the less painful consequences will be in the future.

For the parents in the comments section, that means paying attention to your children and what is going on.

Also for parents in the comments section, predators going after your child are much more likely to be a trusted authority figure, friend of the child, or family member, not some stranger off the street in a van.

Of course, strangers on the street can be quite dangerous in their own right, but the best way to protect children from these modern-day demons is to provide a safe and secure environment for them to grow up in.

To the funders of Sound of Freedom and the religious right in general, I would advise taking a closer look at your own folks before you start accusing everyone else of being a child sex trafficker or predator.

Seriously, stay safe, everyone.