What is Human Sex Trafficking?
Human trafficking (also referred to as trafficking in persons or TIP) is an umbrella term used to describe the process by which millions of people become enslaved each year. This process includes recruitment, harboring, transportation, provisioning and obtaining of persons for purposes of sexual or labor exploitation. Typically traffickers use an assortment of techniques involving force, fraud and multiple forms of coercion in order to establish and maintain control over their victims.
Pimps are ostensibly individuals who procure buyers of commercial sex acts for prostitutes, financially supporting themselves from part or all of the proceeds from the transactions. Pimps’ specific activities include recruitment, harboring, transporting, provisioning and obtaining persons for purposes of exploiting them by pandering them for commercial sex acts. Thus, the term pimp and sex trafficker are synonymous.
In street-level prostitution, pimps may pander women in venues such as the streets, motels, cars, truck stops, and drug houses. Pimp-controlled women are also pandered in hybrid forms of the commercial sex industry such as pornography production, strip joints (including table and lap dancing), live-sex shows, internet or “virtual” prostitution, escort or outcall services, as well as brothels (frequently operating behind fronts like massage parlors and saunas).
Unfortunately, many women who have been involved in sexual trafficking, are blamed and vilified for being in prostitution. This was the case for Stefa, a Moldovan trafficking victim. She explains:
I had to wear a mini-skirt, a thin blouse with nothing underneath and this ugly makeup. So often cars would slow down and people would yell, “You are a whore. This is no job for a girl like you.” But they never stopped to ask if they could help me. They simply drove away, so smug and judging. They didn’t know my circumstance. In their eyes I was a whore. They believed I wanted to be on that street selling my body and, as such, deserved my fate. It was far from the truth.
Many anti-trafficking activists connect sex trafficking with the existence and normalization of the commercial sex trade. Prostitution + Demand – Not enough supply = Sex trafficking. Since sex trafficking is predicated on the existence of the sex industry, we work to curb demand for commercial sex.
And, we view the commercial sex industry (prostitution, pornography, stripping) as an institution that is inherently exploitive and dehumanizing to anyone who sells sex irrespective of whether they were trafficked or woke up one morning and decided it would be lucrative to turn tricks. The bottom line is that we KNOW that prostitution hurts: it damages, it rips, it tears, it breaks, it shreds, it rapes, it pillages; it steals minds, bodies and souls.
Thus, this song is for every person who has ever been in prostitution; know you are loved; know you are a child of God.
Lisa Thompson
Liaison for the Abolition of Sex Trafficking
The Salvation Army
October 2009
www.iast.net
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Malarek, V. (2003). The Natashas: Inside the new global sex trade. USA: Arcade Publishing, Inc, p. 114.
How was Child of God Created?
In the wake of producing Somebody’s Daughter: A Journey to Freedom from Pornography (SD) we started to receive a number of orders on the Music for the Soul web site from people who had heard of SD through the Salvation Army. Subsequently I spoke with Lisa Thompson, Liaison for the abolition of Sex trafficking for the DC office of the Salvation Army, who told me SD was “the best resource I’ve ever seen for telling a prostituted woman who she is in the Lord.”
One thing led to another and Lisa wound up providing me with the stories of several sex-trafficked persons. It was from those stories, along with stories I heard from Shelley Lubben of the Pink Cross Foundation, that the song Child of God eventually came into being.
As I was reading the stories of these women and girls I literally could only read for a few minutes at a time and then I would have to take a break. The material was so horrific. And yet I thought, “If these girls have had to live this experience, the least I can do is honor their pain by hearing their story.” So I would continue reading.
After about two months I was sitting in a line at the drive through teller window of my bank when the lyric suddenly began to come. It was as if the words that had been spoken by these brave women had been organizing themselves in my subconscious and were now being birthed in song form. It was a paraphrase of their composite story, in meter and rhyme.
I quickly pulled out of the drive-through line and drove hurriedly to the nearest church where I knew there was a piano. I rushed into the empty sanctuary – it was a Thursday afternoon - and the song poured out in a matter of minutes.
I was blessed beyond words to hear from Lisa that she felt we had been able to capture something that would minister to those who had been trapped in sex trafficking.
Once the song was written we turned to the recording process. There is a recording studio here in Nashville called Oceanway that used to be a church. The man who runs that studio happens to attend the church where my family worships now. When I asked him if he would donate some studio time to help us record the song he said yes without hesitation.
Then my long time engineer and co-producer of all the Music for the Soul recordings Kent Hooper offered his services to record the song as a gift.
Over the next several days I sent the lyrics to people I knew who had a passion for helping on this issue. One of them was Bonnie Pritchard a friend of mine who happened to be working on a project for Pat Boone at the time. She read him the lyric over the phone and before the end of that day he called and offered to pay the remaining costs for the recording of the song.
When we recorded the lead vocal Kim Keyes came in and gave a superlative effort. When we thought we had a great performance she was still not satisfied. “I’m not her yet,” she said, heading back in to the studio to sing it again. She was determined to capture the heart behind the words; the lived experience of the first person perspective of the song.
Afterwards, when she had made us cry and had given us chills, she refused to be accept payment for her vocal, feeling it was her gift to those who would hear the song.
When we brought the choir in to sing on “Child of God” I was struck by the irony that we were recording the song in a former sanctuary. One of the staff engineers told me that before the studio was opened there had been a service of de-consecration in the space. I said, “Well, we re-consecrated it today!”
Finally, in the summer of 2009 we were able to post Child of God on our site and offer it to others.
It is my prayer that this song will help those who have been victims of sex trafficking or caught in the sex trade understand that there is nothing they have ever done - or anything that has ever been done to them – that can leave them outside of the love of God.
And that is exactly the same message I want the church to take away from the song as well.
Steve Siler - October 2009
Beauty From Ashes™ Ministries - www.beautyfromashes.org
Founded by a former stripper & sex trafficking over comer & her husband, a recovered porn addict. Beauty from Ashes™ Ministries, Inc. is dedicated to women, men and children involved and/or associated with the adult entertainment and/or sex industry.
Artwork used by Permission © Julie Taylor Shematz
4 Sarah - www.4sarah.net
Assisting Women & Girls in the Adult Entertainment Industry
initiative Against Sexual Trafficking - www.iast.net
We exist to create and equip a new abolition movement for the eradication of sexual trafficking, the protection of survivors, and the prosecution of traffickers and exploiters
The Pink Cross Foundation - www.thepinkcross.org
A Christian ministry helping adult film stars come out of the industry
Abolish Human Trafficking - www.abolishhumantrafficking.com
Global Centurion - www.globalcenturion.org
International Crisis Aid - www.crisisaid.org
End Child Prostitution & Trafficking - www.ecpatusa.org
Free the Slaves - www.freetheslaves.net
International Justice Mission - www.IJM.org
International Princess Project - www.intlprincess.org
Living Water for Girls (Atlanta, GA) - www.livingwaterforgirls.org
Love146 - www.love146.org
Nightlight International - www.nightlightinternational.com
Not for Sale - www.notforsalecampaign.org
Polaris Project - www.polarisproject.org
Project Child Save - www.projectchildsave.org
Project Rescue - www.projectrescue.com
Rahab’s Hideaway (Columbus, OH) - www.rahabshideaway.org
Rapha House - www.raphahouse.org
61 Ministries - www.chapter61.com
Stop the Traffik - www.stopthetraffik.org
World Hope - www.worldhope.org
By listing these organizations Music for the Soul does not wish to imply or directly state that they are contributors and/or endorsers of Music for the Soul and our products and services. Music for the Soul offers this contact information as a resource and does not endorse any specific organization. Always seek the advice of medical and counseling professionals on health issues. Trademarks, service marks, and other proprietary identifiers are owned or controlled by their respective parties.
