Millions of children are victims of sex trafficking every single year around the world.
There are organizations that help to rescue them, but after a rescue, the children are turned over to that country's government, where the girls can find themselves right back in the same situation.
A Clark County-based nonprofit organization, Silent Bridge, is seeking local support to continue to fill the void with more safe havens for the victims in numerous countries.
In six years, Silent Bridge has worked hard to rescue children from the sex trafficking trade and house them in safe havens in numerous countries such as Nepal, Bangladesh, Ukraine, Honduras and soon others.
A safe haven provides long-term care, protection, shelter and healing for children who have been rescued by Silent Bridge workers.
John B. with Silent Bridge — his full name withheld due to the sensitive line of work — recently held presentations in Kelso and Longview to share the mission of Silent Bridge and the need for donations on the home front in order to expand safe haven operations in other countries such as Belize.
John B. invited The Reflector to attend a presentation and an exclusive sit-down interview to learn more about the support needed.
“What we do is we focus on rescuing girls that are under 18 years old from sex trafficking, primarily soft rescues where we negotiate either the release of the girls or negotiate the environment the girls are in to get them away from what they’re doing,” he said. “We provide education for the girls, medical treatment for the girls, dental care, school and then, of course, obviously the most essential, housing and subsistence, you know, their food and clothing.”
Silent Bridge also provides activities at safe havens. John B. also writes letters back and forth with the girls in the care of Silent Bridge.
“When I first started getting involved in the human trafficking field, I noticed there were a lot of people doing rescues. But I would always ask the question, ‘What happens to the girls after you rescue them?’” John B. said, adding that the answer was usually the girls being transferred to the government of that country. “I realized that probably wasn’t always the best way for them to be taken care of, and so I decided at that point the real need is not necessarily the rescue but it’s a place they can feel safe and secure and recover from the trauma victimization that they’ve gone through.”
The need in Belize is strong. Gangs in South and Central America are moving north as countries such as El Salvador build larger prisons and tackle organized crime, John B. said.
To operate a safe haven in Belize, he said the need is around $140,000 per year in committed support from organizations and individuals. That number could be divided up by 10 or 20 donors paying on a monthly scale, but John B. also said people that can’t commit monthly can donate directly at donate-silent-bridge.givecloud.co/fundraising/forms/A6B8BBF.
“Silent Bridge is primarily funded through my businesses, so 100% of those profits from my companies go to rescuing and housing the girls and the operational funds,” John B. said. “We have about 51 full-time staff overseas right now, and so it takes a lot of money to fund that, and as we create these emerging safe houses, that’s where we are starting to run out of money. We need more money to fund these emerging ones, and the big one is in Belize right now.”
As gangs such as MS-13 and Barrios-18 move to countries without large prisons, it moves their operations and criminal activities, such as child sex trafficking.
From just one country over the last two years, 900,000 girls have been trafficked to other countries around the world, he said.
“It’s been reported that the income from human trafficking is going to surpass all the drug cartels combined in the next year if it hasn’t already, and so it’s a huge problem,” John B. said.
Domestically, John B. said the problem is prevalent, but oftentimes the girls trafficked in the states come from other countries.
Many police agencies across the United States do already have dedicated human trafficking units. But in order to do the same work that Silent Bridge does in a foreign country in the United States, the costs would be too steep to make a bigger impact.
“I’d like to help these women in the United States,” he said. “... We have over 400 beds overseas. If I changed today, the money it takes me to run 400 beds in all these countries and do it in the U.S., I could probably handle about 25 girls.”
Being able to curb the issue of child sex trafficking with a growing nonprofit and to keep the victims safe could someday lead to eradicating the issue on the home front.
To learn more and to stay up to date with Silent Bridge’s efforts, visit silentbri
