“I didn’t know what to do. I froze.
“It wasn’t right, but what should I have done?” my friend lamented.
She had been standing near a church when an unsettling scene began to unfold. Three men walked out of a hotel, crossed the street and waited. A few minutes later, a woman followed them, carrying a baby in a carseat.
It’s what happened next that shook my friend, even sometime later as she’s telling me this story in the aisle of a grocery store.
Putting the carrier on the sidewalk in front of the men, the woman left and walked away, peering warily down side streets as she went.
What would you have done in that moment? Approach the men? Yell at the lady? Call the police? Or would you have frozen, too, not fully comprehending what had just happened?
You don’t have to know everything that’s going on, but being the eyes, the ears, and knowing who to call can change the trajectory of a trafficking situation.
Currently less than one percent of girls entrapped in sex trafficking make it out of this abuse. If you have just sixty minutes, you have an opportunity to make a difference.
OnWatch™
OnWatch™ is a survivor-led training program—free and online—that teaches you how “to spot, report, and prevent sex trafficking where you live, work, and play.”
The initial ten modules take only an hour to complete, and you can do it at your own pace: all at once or in brief segments. Your progress is automatically saved so you can easily pick up where you left off. Comprehension quizzes at the end of each video help you retain what you’ve learned.
An essential part of the training is discovering what to do when you see something rather than overlooking or dismissing it. If you have just four minutes right now, sign-up for the training and go to Module 8: Survivor Identification and Reporting. This segment provides a straightforward overview of what to look for and how to report it.
If you’ve learned about trafficking in other ways, these mini-lessons are a terrific review. If you’re a newbie, they will give you the confidence to talk about and combat trafficking in your community. OnWatch™ also offers group trainings and industry-specific courses, both worth checking out.
This training will also clue you in on several real-life examples of what you might see that’s suspicious behavior:
- You notice a child riding her bike to a home down the street. You know the wife is not home, but every day you keep seeing the child’s bike in their driveway. Hmm? Why is that child going to see an adult male by herself?
- A teacher opens a supply closet and sees a boy with a male teacher. The male teacher is very angry. Why is he so angry? Should you report this?
Sneak Peak
Here are the ten initial modules, sixty minutes of professionally produced, productive training:
- 1. Introduction
- 2. Child Sexual Abuse and Familial Trafficking
- 3. Boys and Internet Grooming
- 4. Adult Entertainment and Escalation
- 5. Sexting and Sextortion
- 6. Boyfriending
- 7. Why Don’t they Leave?
- 8. Survivor Identification and Reporting
- 9. Prevention and Protecting Your Community
- 10. Hope, Freedom. Future.
More insight and preparation prepares you to be a smarter watchman. These three bonus modules from OnWatch™ are terrific and well worth another thirty minutes of your time:
- 11. Vulnerability of Individuals with Disabilities
- 12. Identifying Trafficking Victims in Schools
- 13. Camming as Online Exploitation
Let your church, friends and family know about this free speed-training. Knowing what to do empowers you to make a difference.
The Reason Why
At 6 years old, my family began trafficking me. I went to school. I went to church. I went to crowded doctors’ offices. Dozens of adults were around me every day, but no one saw anything. My story could have been a lot different if the adults in my life had been OnWatch™. By educating yourself, you can help save lives, change lives, and provide a future for survivors of sex trafficking.
—Hope, trafficked from ages 6 to 11
Prayer
Education empowers us to watch in our neighborhoods, schools, and wherever youth are. Let many get prepared to put knowledge into action if they encounter a trafficking situation. As Hope pointed out, many adults had contact with her, but didn’t heed the signs of her distress. Let us determine to be the eyes and ears to potentially save a life.
Expose! Expose! Expose this darkness that is masquerading in plain sight. Let many people receive the help they desperately need. Alert health care workers, people in the hospitality industry, and educators to report what they see. Let it produce real-life prevention and positive outcomes.
Thank you, Lord, for those actively educating families and the public. Continue to use those with lived-experience to warn this generation of the hidden dangers and satan’s use of vulnerabilities to prey on individuals. Cause the plans of the wicked to fail in Jesus’s name. Amen.
Decrees
We decree your word goes forth like a fire exposing the hidden plots of the enemy. We decree the hammer of your word shatters the rock. Jeremiah 23:29
Created by the Safe House Project and the Malouf Foundation, who help survivors heal.