I am sure you have heard of the terms trafficking and exploitation by now. They have been a hot topic over the past couple of years. I could sit here and list hundreds of statistics for you to read, but not today. Today I am just going to lay everything out on the table to show you why we are doing what we are doing.
Let me start with how we started. In 2020, after a group of Facebook users fought Facebook to have pedophile/exploitation pages removed, and seeing that this was just a small dot on the map of human trafficking, I, along with my co founder, felt God leading us to do something about this and fight this fight. That is when Defend The Voiceless was born. We went through months of being deleted from Facebook for exposing the truth, but that seems to have stopped. While bringing this organization together, our desire to fight for these children turned into a desire to fight for anyone who has been through or is going through this hell. Sometimes when we are in the midst of a life like this, we lose our voice and our will to fight. I know I did. From my childhood through adulthood I have been sexually harassed/touched many times. I didn’t speak of any of those instances until these past few years. I have endured panic attacks, low self esteem, and fear, and now I am working toward freedom and I want to help others do the same. The goal of DTV is to be a safe place to reach out to in order to begin the healing process and work to eventually make Georgia a safe state that protects victims/survivors of trafficking/exploitation. We will do this through making connections with other organizations so we can make sure we have every resource needed for each survivor we encounter. We are working toward this daily and I am looking forward to the day we reach that goal.
You can google statistics and see how bad this is and how overlooked it is. Why does it not get the attention that it needs?!? I am so disgusted at how someone could do this to another individual and, in a lot of cases, not serve very many years in prison. This should hold a life sentence at the least because I hold it to the same level as murder, but in these cases, the spirit and self worth of a human is being murdered. There is so much that needs to change, but it is going to take all of us working toward this change.
If you are wondering why this is so important, Look into the eyes of a child or adult who has been molested/sexually assaulted and you will know why this fight is so important. Look at the families with missing loved ones who have possibly been sold into trafficking and you will know why this fight is important. Look at your own children, who you could not imagine something like this happening to, and you will know why this fight is so important. If you would like to join this fight, you can be a sponsor for Defend The Voiceless or any organization in this fight. You can also sign up to be a volunteer. We are not competing, we are working alongside each other in hopes that this is eventually eradicated and we no longer have a fight to fight. You can go to defendthevoiceless.org to join in this fight, or reach out to us via email at defendthevoicelessorg@gmail.com.
God Bless,
-Stephanie