One of the things I love most about HOPE61 is our focus on prevention.
Most organizations that fight human trafficking focus on changing laws, rescuing people, or caring for them after they’ve been trafficked. These are all necessary and important responses to human trafficking. The people doing that work are heroes. But here is a question I want you to sit with for a moment:
If I asked you what percentage of trafficked people are ever rescued, what would your guess be?
The United Nations has estimated that only one percent of those who are trafficked will be rescued.
One percent.
For the millions of people trapped in this evil today, rescue and aftercare are urgently needed. But when 99 percent of victims never make it out, it becomes clear that rescue alone cannot solve this enormous problem. Something must happen before people are trafficked in the first place.
When HOPE61 began, founder Joyce Oden was passionate about the local church’s responsibility to respond to human trafficking. When Tom Overton became the director of HOPE61, he and Tonya (now HOPE61 associate director) explored extensively what that response should look like. The Overtons spent much time praying, researching the issue, visiting OMS fields, and talking with churches, and Tonya participated in a Community Health Evangelism (CHE) training. Through all of this preparation, they realized two things: 1) the only way to ultimately stop human trafficking is to prevent it before it happens and 2) the local church is well-placed to facilitate change in their communities through the power of the Holy Spirit. So HOPE61 made a choice that few organizations have made: to focus only on human trafficking prevention.
That decision has shaped everything we do.
Since I began working in this ministry, I’ve noticed that most organizations do talk about prevention. When our team attended the Department of Homeland Security symposium referenced in our last blog, we heard from many of those organizations about their work. We quickly realized that when many of them talk about prevention, they mean preventing trafficking from continuing. I did not hear another organization talk about trying to prevent it from starting.
The distinction matters.
Our ENGAGE training not only equips churches to prevent people from becoming victims. It also equips churches to prevent people from becoming traffickers and buyers. People who attended our trainings were in the process of being recruited to become traffickers themselves. They did not realize what was happening to them until they went through our training. We have also been able to speak into situations where buyers did not understand what was really on the other side of their choices.
I hear many stories that break my heart. Often, I find myself wondering how the story would have been different if people in that person's life had been paying attention, understood what could happen, and been equipped to do something about it.
That is what HOPE61 exists to do.
Prevention is not a lesser response to human trafficking. It is the response that has the greatest chance of changing the numbers. And it starts with awareness, training, and people who are willing to pay attention.
If you would like to bring an ENGAGE training to your church or community, reach out to us at hope61info@onemissionsociety.org. You may never know how many stories you help change before they even begin.
