A High School Epiphany Led NFL QB Kirk Cousins to Join Fight Against Human Trafficking

Published: June 5, 2026

By Mallory Mattingly

Before becoming a four-time Pro Bowl quarterback, Kirk Cousins learned about human trafficking at 17-years-old, setting him on a course to help those trapped in the devastating industry.

“I first heard about the issue of human trafficking in 2005-ish,” Cousins told former NFL player Benjamin Watson on “The Just Life” podcast. “I was in high school. Gary Haugen, who had founded International Justice Mission, he was traveling and speaking, sharing the story of what IJM had been doing, and he opened my eyes to hear about some things going on, mostly in third-world countries that I just didn’t know were even a thing, you know. Why would someone do that to another person? That’s horrible.”

The International Justice Mission is the “biggest anti-trafficking organization in the world. Since 1997, IJM and its partners have freed over 490,000 people from slavery and violent abuse. And we won’t stop until all are free. Because everyone deserves the freedom to play,” IJM said on social media.

Cousins explained that the real reason human trafficking exists is because of the lack of consequences.

“And you realize that they do it because there are no consequences. Gary was in his work, his organization, IJM, and was working to bring consequences,” the athlete continued. “There was something in me that night that said, ‘Okay, this is good work, and what’s going on is not right, and this has to — these people have to get to these needs and meet them.'”

From that moment on, Cousins felt a calling on his life to provide resources to help end the fight against human trafficking.

“And so I walked away, and I was, I don’t know why, at 17 years old, I thought, ‘God, I don’t know that I want to go do that work. I want to get the resources to give to him to do that work.’ And that was where my heart was, and I remember even just saying a prayer like that, like, ‘God, would you give me the tool that he needs, so I can help give it to him,'” the quarterback recalled.

Since then, Cousins has used his NFL platform to work with IJM and raise awareness about human trafficking.

“At this point, you know what’s truth and you know what’s not,” he explained in 2021. “And so for me, I’ve been around IJM long enough to know that some things come and go, but the work that IJM is doing, the difference they’re making, that goes way before any theories and it will be here long after.”

“If it truly is brought to the light and identified for the horrible evil that it is, people will band together to put an end to it,” Cousins stressed.

Like Cousins, Watson also fights against injustices like human trafficking. This month, he and IJM will raise awareness through interviews like Cousins’ as athletes from the NFL, MLB, NHL, NBA, US Soccer and USATF use “the global power of sport to protect people in poverty from human trafficking, slavery and other forms of violence.”