Yes, the ‘Sound of Freedom’ People Are Awful. So Are Most Christian Anti-Sex Trafficking Organizations.
The right-wing Christian obsession with sex is not good or healthy, even when they seem to be trying to help.
With all the recent news that a producer of Sound of Freedom touched the breasts of a 16-year-old victim and the multiple reports of sexual misconduct against Tim Ballard, the "hero" off which the film is based, more people are reeling about how sketchy this film was.
The criticisms lodged against the movie have been ongoing since production began but have ramped up since the accusations against Tim Ballard, founder of anti-sex trafficking organization Operation Underground Railroad, has been under heavy criticism. While the rest of us were out seeing Oppenheimer and Barbie, conservative Christians were in full force seeing Sound of Freedom, proving a definite interest in the topic. It was one of the year's biggest hits and definitely one of the most financially successful Christian movies in years. I talked my own parents out of seeing it.
At first glance, it may seem that people showing disgust at these anti-sex trafficking movies are in the wrong. Who would be AGAINST helping kids being forced into prostitution or stopping children from being kidnapped? What kind of monster would criticize someone who did that, no matter their religion?
The problem is that not only are all the people involved bad actors and possibly abusers themselves (read here to see the issues with anti-sex trafficking organizations like Operation Underground Railroad from a balanced perspective), but also that many organizations aren't helping. They're just inspiring Christians to rage at something from afar while misrepresenting what the problem actually is. If there's anything conservative American Christians are fantastic at, it's getting mad at some vague issue without actually wanting to take any steps to research it or stop it at the source.
While these same people commit hate crimes toward trans people and drag queens and call them pedophiles, they also think of sex trafficking as this: a beautiful (probably white) American child is kidnapped from the grocery store at gunpoint, forced to travel to some primarily non-white country, and is pimped out and abused in horrific ways until some military/government figure or Christian organization (from America) saves them. This scenario seldom happens.
The reality is and has always been that most sexual abuse happens with people the victim knows. Sadly, this includes forced prostitution or child sexual abuse material. The "bad guy" is someone's uncle, mom, sibling, or stepdad. Maybe they're a neighbor that babysits. For teens, maybe it's an older boyfriend who has groomed them. And, of course, perhaps it's someone at school or church. Sexual abuse in religious settings is often under-reported, and the rate is still high. The more fundamentalist it is, the more shame and secrecy that surrounds incidents of sexual abuse, assault, and misconduct.
Religious organizations are always hazardous. I say this as someone heavily involved in many affirming religious organizations and occasionally volunteers with faith-based charities addressing poverty through my church. But you should always look at the problem they're claiming to address and how they're claiming to address it. For instance, what even IS sex trafficking? The numbers they often pull include not only forced prostitution but all sex work and all pornography work, even when it includes adults who consent. It's absurd to include people who cheerfully have an OnlyFans account along with children who are kidnapped and forced into sexually abusive scenarios in your numbers about "sex trafficking."
Now, trust me, I understand there are gray areas here. Would every sex worker do sex work if they had money to do something else? It's hard to tell. Some people genuinely enjoy the voyeurism and the line of work. Others do it more begrudgingly. Others were undoubtedly forced into it and now dream of the day they can quit. It's like ANY OTHER JOB when it comes down to it: our bodies are being used in ways we may or may not like.
Because of capitalism, everything about us is for sale. We provide labor power to feed our families. Sex work may be unjust in many cases and is more vulnerable and personal in the ways that it can be harmful. But many jobs we ask others to perform are unjust, such as when miners work in dangerous conditions that cause medical effects and ultimately reduce their life expectancy by about 25 years or when teachers have to die trying to protect children (while making $40,000 a year) because we live a country that will not use science-based laws to prevent school shootings.
I haven't seen any evangelical organizations fighting to reduce school shootings or overthrowing capitalism as part of a pro-life stance.
I also don’t know of a single Christian anti-sex trafficking organization that works with an evidence-based approach or with professional, community-based leaders who have experience working with sexual assault and abused children. And sometimes, such as in the case of Operation Underground Railroad, they’re more than ineffective: they’re downright harmful.
American conservative Christians are desperate to be heroes. They want to save babies from dying via abortion without acknowledging the horrific world and terrible cost of bringing a child into the world under certain medical conditions or lack of sustainable, long-term financial capability on a planet that is getting warmer and less habitable by the day. I'm a parent, and the idea that we attempt to force parenthood onto people is still quite horrific. It's terrifying and challenging at times.
They want to feed the poor for one day or build one building without asking themselves why there are so many poor or unhoused people. They're okay with a system that causes people to go without food or homes, because they have food and homes from that system, so it can't be all bad, right? When you are told all unworthy people are going to hell, add that to the American falsehood of "hard work will lead to success," you'll blame everyone for their own problems and fail to empathize with any single one of these people. The only reason they help at all is because it makes them look good and feel good.
Saving victims of sex trafficking and sexual abuse requires a victim-based approach on the surface, but it would also require a complete overhaul of our capitalist system.
It means asking hard questions, like why do people want to view child sex abuse material or have sex with children? How can we prevent that, especially when the abuse may be cyclical? It's difficult to get people into therapy for pedophilia, and many doctors don't know how to treat it. What if people could get real, lasting treatment (for free, in a way accessible) for these thoughts before they acted on them? But no, instead, the right has started calling anyone even vaguely associated with trans people a "pedo" or a "groomer," and those words are almost meaningless now. I was called a groomer for saying that my children had trans adults in their lives as part of our friend and partner groups. Imagine if my children were actually trans.
Why do people choose sex trafficking as a career to the point that they will choose violence and cruelty toward others to make money? What kind of circumstances led them to believe that was the only option? What kind of life did they have before they got there? What type of education did they have, and was their childhood one of support and love? You can guess that many of these people faced horrific things. This isn't to excuse their behavior — they need help. They should be punished for their actions. They should be kept away from children and the general public. But what kind of things actually rehabilitate people in this kind of life? Hint: punitive measures famously don't work.
And better yet, what would prevent it? It goes without saying — and in fact, goes with explicit proof — that countries where its citizens have their needs provided for in the form of social welfare have lower crime rates. Every single time, people who have roofs over their heads, food in their bellies, better and more education, and easy, free access to all kinds of health care are better performing in society.
Conservative Christians famously believe that the only type of sex that is acceptable is between a married cisgender man and a married cisgender woman. Catholics often believe that you can't even ejaculate anywhere other than a vagina. All other sex is seen as deviant: premarital sex, sex with someone of the same gender, and any form of non-monogamy (except some fundamentalist groups, particularly FLDS). Former sex workers and strippers are displayed as a cautionary tale in religious groups, and all of their goals eventually come back to the idea that we have to herd people into the conservative Christian definition of sex.
I'm not surprised that Tim Ballard may turn out to be a sex pest, nor am I surprised that so many people who claim they want to "save our children" are just QAnon psychos in disguise. But the problem is more widespread than the focus on the issues in one religious organization would have you believe. We need to look at how all anti-sex trafficking organizations work and how many religious organizations work in general. For instance, adoption was seen as a massive issue in the '80s and '90s, and pro-life Christians jumped at the chance to encourage international adoption.
But what happened is that unwed mothers were badgered and bribed to give up their children. Many adopted children from religious families now report feeling like their culture, religion, and heritage were stripped away from them — and PoC adoptees, in particular, have felt that their (almost always) white parents did not respect the issues they faced with racism, sometimes from their own adoptive family members. Parents considered these adopted children as opportunities to evangelize rather than see them as whole, unique people with vastly different backgrounds than their own. Many have since stopped international adoptions, focusing on local orphanages and supporting foster or refugee children instead. It's a step in the right direction, but I'm still wary.
Conservative Christians want so badly to be "good" that they don't even care what that "good" actually is. People need long-lasting, dramatic, systemic change. We need to listen to people who have actually been sex trafficked more than we need to listen to what religious organizations say the right path is. Because real mutual aid, real help, will always fight for a deeper cause than just getting attention. Sound of Freedom did not stop sex trafficking and does not prevent it. Ask yourself: what would?