By Shawn Smith
The statistics are alarming. An estimated 27.6 million people are victims of human trafficking globally, according to the Department of Homeland Security — with 77% of those people in forced labor and 23% victims of sex trafficking.
Tim Tebow has been one of the most vocal advocates fighting against this through his organization the Tim Tebow Foundation.
“We talk about the trafficking or exploitation or abuse of people, it is rampant around the world, and so many times we just think it’s over there, but it’s not,” Tebow told Dr. Josh Axe on his self-titled podcast. “It’s here in our communities and the nicest communities in America.”
“[W]hen we talk about those that are are sharing and distributing on the peer-to-peer networks, the abuse of boys and girls, like we used to trade baseball cards they’re trading this material,” he said. “We’re third worst in the world; it’s China, Russia, us, and then Italy.”
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“When we talk about the buying of live stream rape of boys and girls, we’re the number one buyer in the world,” the former quarterback continued. “In our opinion it’s one of the worst evils in the world.”
The Heisman Trophy winner pointed out that the war against human trafficking isn’t just about sex trafficking but forced labor, forced marriages and organ harvesting as well, making the battle all the more challenging.
“It’s such a vast area of battlefronts that we got to have more people step in on different ones,” he explained. “And this is where …we got to build up more technology that can fight. We got to have more people on the line. We got to have more safe homes around the country and around the world.”
According to one recent study Tebow shared, for around every 25,000 people who enter into sex-trafficking daily, only about 500 leave.
“It is a battle that there are wins in, but we are losing every day,” he told Dr. Axe.
One of the ways that Tebow and his foundation are trying to make strides in beating those somber odds is with the Disrupt campaign.
According to a Tim Tebow Foundation’s Instagram post, the campaign’s aim is to “build a nationwide ecosystem that attacks trafficking state by state” by using technology to find children that are being trafficked, as well as find the perpetrators.
Tebow, who recently became a first-time dad to daughter Daphne, said that the fight against trafficking starts by protecting their own children, especially when it comes to social media and the Internet.
“If you were going to take your two kids to a playground, would you do it if you knew that there were hundreds of offenders walking around that playground looking for kids? There’s no chance,” the 38-year-old said. “Every time that we go on the Internet, it’s not much different. There are people that are looking to groom, to lure, to exploit.”
The activist said that the evil of human trafficking is something that Jesus would not look away from, and as followers of Christ, we shouldn’t turn a blind eye from either.
“We serve a king that didn’t walk past, he didn’t look by, he didn’t just go and sit at the head of table, no, he went to those that are hurting…” he said. “And that’s what we’re called to do as well in their darkest hour of need. And that’s the mission that we try to live out every day.”
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