Former NFL QB Urges Action Against Child Sex Trafficking: ‘Give Hope’
By Movieguide® Contributor
Tim Tebow has been on the frontlines fighting child sex trafficking and abuse and knows that many children are abused at the hands of someone in their trusted circle — he’s joining forces with lawmakers to do something about it.
“What do you tell someone what love looks like when their dad was the first person to abuse them? There are a lot of boys and girls that are suffering at the hands of those that have been called with the responsibility to protect them,” Tebow said in an Instagram video. “Out of the majority of these studies it looks like around 80% of those that are abusing these boys and girls are doing it from their trusted circle. Mom, dad, coach, pastor, chaplain, teacher, babysitter, someone in their trusted circle is doing this.”
He continued, “That’s also why it’s so important because who do you go to? Who does a boy or girl go to if the person they’re supposed to trust is the person that’s abusing them? That’s also why there is such an urgency with this because they have no one to go to. No one to ask for help. Well guess what? Maybe we can give them someone that they can ask for help because maybe that person is going to show up on their front door.”
To do this, the former NFL star joined a bipartisan group of lawmakers earlier this week to unveil the Renewed Hope Act of 2024.
“The legislation would enhance the ability of U.S. Immigration and Customs and Enforcement and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to rescue exploitation victims and identify predators,” the Christian Post reported. “The measure aims to provide the agencies with the resources to hire and train personnel and equip them with advanced victim identification methods.”
“Their pain must stir us to act,” Tebow wrote. “This is why we’re calling on Congress to pass legislation to strengthen our nation’s response to identifying and rescuing these boys and girls.”
“The biblical form of Hope means to look forward with confidence, expectation, and anticipation,” he said in another post. “I believe the ‘Renewed Hope Act of 2024’ to combat child sexual exploitation is going to do just that: give hope to kids, to protect them, to love them, and to show them Faith, Hope and Love in their darkest hour of need.”
Movieguide® previously reported on Tebow’s fight against child trafficking:
Tim Tebow’s organization’s latest anti-trafficking campaign Unknown & Unfinished, in partnership with law enforcement, has helped find over 800 child victims of sexual exploitation so far.
But the football star and activist isn’t stopping there. He shared on X that while we can find peace knowing when Jesus died on the cross, He said, “It is finished,” as believers, there is still work to do.
“[W]hile Jesus’s mission is finished, ours is not. Not while there are hundreds of thousands of boys and girls suffering,” Tebow said. “The mission isn’t finished until all children are known, until all are loved, and until all are free.”
The goal of the Tim Tebow Foundation’s latest campaign is to help locate exploited children around the world.
One of the foundation’s ways to achieve this is to “equip law enforcement with training and technology that can lead to the most vulnerable children and the most dangerous offenders,” the foundation’s website reads.
