Human Trafficking - Hiding in Plain Sight – with Tami Brown Rodriquez – [Ep. 287]

P101-ep-287-podcast-transcript

Linda J. Hansen:  Thank you for tuning in today. My name is Linda J. Hansen, your host of the Prosperity 101® Podcast, where we seek to unleash the power of employers to reclaim and preserve America by Connecting Boardroom to Breakroom® and policy to paycheck. Employers educating employees about public policy issues that affect their jobs can lead to greater employee loyalty, engagement, and retention, and to an increased awareness of the blessings and responsibilities of living in a free society. 

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Thank you so much for tuning in today. I appreciate you joining us and we have a very informative, educational, and very moving episode for you today. This issue is something that affects our nation, our families, and I know you will want to stay engaged through the whole episode to hear my special guest.

Before we get into the interview, I want to say thank you so much to our prosperity partners, those who help us keep the podcast on the air with their financial gifts, and also to our strategic partners, the businesses and organizations that are like-minded and want to promote freedom throughout the country, and please support them. Visit their websites that you can find in the show notes and on our website, prosperity101.com, and you can also find the prosperity partner link there as well. 

Before we go any further, I do want to also invite people to join our Employers Unleashed™ community in which we have a monthly webinar where we tackle a mountain of culture, the seven mountains of culture: the business, family, media, arts and entertainment, education, government and military, and religion. We discuss ways that we can positively impact that mountain through things we do in our businesses, and you can make a difference. So please join with us with the Employers Unleashed™ community. You can find information on our website.

So now to my special guest. Today, I have Tammy Brown Rodriguez. She is the new CEO of Untrafficked.

If you are a longtime listener, you know that I have had Eric Colton on in the past to talk about Untrafficked. The ministry of Untrafficked is so amazing to me, and I think it's so incredibly important at this time in our nation's history. The ministry of Untrafficked is to protect children. From protecting children to rescuing them and all the way to healing. Untrafficked equips Americans to join the war on child trafficking in the US because we know that the only real solution is a complete one.

Tammy's story, her background, and the story of Untrafficked will move you in ways you might not expect, and you will find that you may be able to truly help someone by preventing a trafficking situation as you learn today how to spot them, but also what to do if someone you love may be trafficked and how do we help these people heal? 

So, Tammy, thank you so much for being with us today.

Tami Brown Rodriguez:  Oh, it is such my pleasure. Thank you for having us back again. Eric, our founder, has done incredible work over the last six and a half years, and it's literally an honor to be able to lead this organization into this next season.

So, thank you.

Linda J. Hansen: Oh, it's my pleasure. And he has just done a great job and I appreciate him so much. And so often if I even hear of missing children or something, I send them over to him right away because the resources of Untrafficked are incredible to help find, locate, and help restore these victims.

But before we get into the details of that, I'd like you to share a little bit more about you, help our viewers get to know you a little bit. And then what is it that actually drove you into this space? You have a personal story. 

Tami Brown Rodriguez: Yes, I do. This is very personal to me.

I spent the last 30 years in business. I had a legislative consulting firm and I was living the American dream. 

But during that time, there was a little dirty little secret that I was living with, which was that my niece was being trafficked. Now, for over 15 years, we had to look for her and we couldn't find her. We didn't know what was going on.

And what ended up happening is that after we figured out that she wasn't just a runaway, she wasn't just making bad decisions. She wasn't just a drug addict. But in fact, she was groomed from a very young age. So from the time she was 13– and for 15 years, unfortunately, she was trafficked here in the United States. 

Let me be clear. I ended up having to leave my job and start looking for my niece full time, not because law enforcement wouldn't do the job, but they couldn't do the job because by that time she was over the age of 18 and they just thought that she didn't want to be found.

So my husband and I were the only ones in our family that had the ability to lay down some of the work that we were doing in our personal lives, to go look for her. We both got our P.I. license because… it's interesting that you have to have a P.I. license before you can legally get onto the dark web and look for and do all the necessary requirements to find somebody that way. And so we did that.

And by the grace of God, we found her about two years ago in June. She was alive. And that really changed my life profoundly because I didn't quite understand what family members were going through.

You know, when we hear trafficked, we think, oh, she was locked in a cage or she was sent overseas. And really, the face of human trafficking is very different than anybody can possibly imagine. And so when I found Untrafficked, when I learned that there was an organization that had the resources I didn't have, as a family member, to get a P.I. license and do all of the digital work, that an organization has the capacity to do that for me and with me, it changed my life. 

I started in November of this year and I'm able to work here to do three main things. We, number one, focus on protecting and guarding the innocent through education. We, of course, hunt the hidden through our capabilities to find those that are lost as well as their perpetrators and finally help heal the broken.

So those are the three buckets that we do. You know, and for me, part of what I learned through the season of looking for my niece is that only one percent of victims outcry. Only one percent of victims cry out.

And I know that as a survivor of sexual abuse myself, what happens when you learn at a very young age and you get traumatized at a very young age, you're more susceptible for this kind of exploitation. And so we really need to unpack this crime and understand how it even begins in the first place. And for my niece's story, it was in school.

And I know we're hearing a lot more about that now where lots of children are getting groomed in school and nobody knows about it and they're not reporting it. And so how as a society can we keep our eyes open so we know what to look for? Had I understood the dynamic, I think our search for her would have looked differently if we really understood the problem.

Linda J. Hansen: Oh, absolutely. You know, it's something that people are afraid to talk about, I think. And, we always think about the victim, too.

There's always a perpetrator as well. And they're hiding in plain sight and they deserve justice for their crimes. And it's so hard because things are so, like you said, it can be so hidden.

And you mentioned the school. I think that that is one of the really scary things about trafficking. We think about trafficking like somebody being kidnapped. You know, the white van with no license plates that shows up in your neighborhood and grabs your child off the street, which happens. But we also don't think so often about how trafficking can occur with the people who are close to us in our community. They can be the teachers, they can be the coaches, they can be the neighbors, the friends, sometimes the relatives.

And this is really concerning. So what would you tell people to help them discover the signs of trafficking? So you realize when it's not just a child acting out, but maybe someone who's truly being victimized and they don't even know or know what to do about it.

Tami Brown Rodriguez: That's right. So what makes Untrafficked so unique is that we do situational training, right? So there's a huge movement in the anti-human trafficking space to bring awareness about the problem.

And what we know is 750,000 predators are online at any given moment, according to the FBI, and that every child under the age, I mean, a hundred percent of children under the age of 15 have been approached online by somebody they don't know. Number one, we know over 90 percent of those kids have been solicited for sex online by the time they're 15. So this is so prevalent.

It's not just a subset problem of, oh, it's the vulnerable children or it's a poverty issue. So one of the things that we do and we do well is situational training. My trainer is an ex-FBI agent who worked in anti-human trafficking for 15 years.

She is an investigator. And so we train people what to look for. So, for example, with my niece, she was getting extra attention from a teacher.

We need to teach our children what extra attention, what healthy attention looks like versus unhealthy attention. So I want us to think tonight or today as a construct of safety, because I think the reason why people don't want to talk about this issue is because it's dark and scary and it's horrible. And I wish this on nobody.

But until we can recognize that safety issues need to be taught in school, such as what is a healthy relationship with a coach versus an unhealthy relationship or a step parent? What does that look like? How can we equip the parents and the children in order to understand those boundaries so that if something were to happen, that they would actually feel confident and to tell their parents?

Because only one percent of sex crimes are reported. Only one percent of people who've been sexually assaulted, report. Only 1.7 percent of human trafficking is actually kidnapping. As high as 48 percent of all trafficking is done by what's called familial trafficking, done by somebody you know. So it's a parent. It's a trusted adult.

Here in Texas, we saw in the last two years, a massive uptick in sexual misconduct complaints against teachers with children. We had over 6,888 of those sexual misconduct complaints against teachers that went uninvestigated by the Texas Education Agency. And so two years ago, I started working on a bill in order to ensure that if those complaints were hidden in the school and the schools were covering them up, that parents had the opportunity to sue the school because those school districts had what we call sovereign immunity.

And I want everybody to be able to have a remedy that we know works– is how do we hold these people accountable? How do we make grooming and exploitation unthinkable? Well, we make it by bringing it into the light, educating everybody across the board.

So Untrafficked actually has a contract with the Dallas Independent School District where we've gone in and provided situational training for the students, the teachers and the family members. We even have conversation cards where if you don't know how to start those conversations, we have a guide for you. We have a parent guide available for free where it walks you through what to look for.

And I'm going to hit hard on apps. I know that the whole device and the Internet issue has been really heavy in the news media, about how do we keep our kids safe online? I'm here to tell you that any app that has a chat feature, even the Bible Hub app has a chat feature.

It can be weaponized against our kids. So we have to make sure that we monitor our kids' phones. There's apps you can put on your kids' phones that will mirror onto your phone so you can see who they're talking to.

There are apps that are available to support parents in this process. But my advice is to clearly have these conversations and have them early so that kids know what it looks like and what it feels like when something's off. Because as a child, I didn't get that information.

And when something you know, when I was assaulted as a young child, it didn't even occur to me to tell my parents. How is that possible? Right. What kind of communication wasn't happening such that it didn't occur to me to report it to my parents?

Linda J. Hansen: Absolutely. You know, these things, sometimes children don't really even know how to communicate it. And especially before there were so many resources online or things to educate parents or other caring adults, we didn't know.

I mean, like people didn't know how to recognize certain signs. And that's what I think is so important about Untrafficked because I think your programs that help educate people in the workplace, in schools, in families, it helps them to see these signs, which is critical to helping prevent and restore these victims. 

You know, you had mentioned your niece, and oftentimes when we think about trafficking, we think about females. We think about the young girls, the young women, being raped, being trafficked. But I'd like you to address how prevalent it is with boys as well, with how prevalent it is with males, because I think sometimes people don't think this happens to boys, but it most certainly does.

Tami Brown Rodriguez: It absolutely does. And in fact, we're seeing a massive uptick of young boys being assaulted. And here's the research. It used to be that pornography was covered and hidden and set aside. It was that dirty magazine in the grocery store with the paper over the top of it.

Now, because of the access to the Internet, we're seeing young boys accessing porn on average at the age of eight or nine. And so what happens is that chemically changes the brain infrastructure. There's a chemical switch that's flipped and it's instantly addictive.

And what happens is these boys and young girls, too, but they act out on each other what they're seeing online because they think it's normal. And that's getting reinforced in a hypersexual culture that we live in. And so they're acting it out on each other.

And so we're seeing more youth crimes against each other than we've ever seen before because they literally didn't know it was wrong, because it has been so normalized. So I have worked with them over the last five years, making sure that… I think we have 24 states now, have porn as a public health hazard. So, you know, so we've got to raise the awareness of where this is happening and why it's happening.

And so, you know, here at Untrafficked, we always talk about how we need to un traffic our own homes. And what does that look like? Well, that makes sure that our kids know what's right, what's wrong.

It makes sure that dads and moms aren't watching porn. Let's not normalize that in our households, because that is a huge form of trafficking as well. The pornography industry.

But if we can start training our children to keep safe and understand that that's not OK and what good, healthy relationships look like, that's number one. And number two, when we talk about organizations, trafficking doesn't look like we thought it would look like. Kids are going to school and being trafficked at school and coming home at night. But if you kidnap somebody, then that's a huge red flag. That's obvious something's going on. 

But when your kids may be on roblox or on any of these games and they start talking to individuals, these predators don't start out with the advancement of soliciting them for sex. It starts very nuanced. It's a compliment. It's earning their trust.

And we've seen the most recent is gift giving through Uber Foods app like the. So they're dropping lunches off. They're dropping off monster drinks and Takis. So it looks kind of innocent. That's just lunch, mom.

Then their gifts get better and the gifts get better because they're earning that trust. And that's how exploitation begins. And so even if we're talking about telling your parents, if somebody gives you a gift that one outcry of, yeah, hey, mom, at school today, I got lunch delivered.

That could be a warning sign. It could be a warning sign if your kids start acting differently, if there's a dramatic mood change, if the friends hanging out are different, if they're retracting in and they're really quiet or alternatively, if they're busting out and angry. Watching for some kind of behavioral change, that's a great indicator.

It's also a great indicator if you're not meeting these kids, like if your child is in a relationship with somebody you've not met. I'm here to say, and you know, you've raised six children, but if they're talking to somebody that they're not bringing home or you've not met parents, we've got to make sure that we know who our kids' friends are, who they're spending time with. 

And our organization actually also goes into businesses and trains them. We have a training program for the hospitality industry. Casinos have reached out and asked us to come in and train their employees. Churches have asked us to come in. Youth groups are being targeted right now. And so not only do we want situational training, but I think the other piece that's missing is, OK, I see something odd, now what? 

I don't know that a crime has happened. Who do I call? And it's really important that we reach out to our local law enforcement, but they may not do anything. They may say a crime has been committed, ma'am? And if you don't know a crime has been committed, that makes it more difficult. 

So go to untrafficked.org, our website, and we have a tip line. Submit a tip and our hunter analysts will look into that tip and they will reach out and let you know.

And sometimes what you think might be odd may just be that child has a unique personality and they're already normally quiet or they don't make eye contact or maybe they're thin or unhealthy or navigating a health situation. But what if just reporting a tip to untrafficked.org changes their life because we can look at it and say, no, this is a problem. 

Now, we also want to make sure that we reach out to Homeland Security, they have a national human trafficking hotline. That's our favorite. And I'm telling you, that's our favorite because they will mobilize. HSI has done an incredible job.

And so if you can report a tip there and as a backup to us, then we can help law enforcement with some of the research that's done. We can also walk you through some of the steps that as a loved one or a trusted parent that you're feeling something is off, then we can guide you through some of the healthy ways to navigate that concern.

Linda J. Hansen: I'm so glad you brought all this up. And one of the other things that I want to make sure listeners understand is this is also not just an issue for children. You mentioned your niece being above 18.

And so law enforcement was just thinking she was choosing this. Many adults get caught in trafficking. And as I've studied the immigration issue and learned about the horrible injustices done to innocent immigrants who came in good faith but got trapped into trafficking through the cartels and things, as we rescue these people and help restore them either to their home country or to fullness here, we need to be mindful of how to help them heal.

So whether they're children or adults, we need to be mindful of how to help them heal and have their own emotions and their bodies and everything restored. So we'll talk about that in a bit, about steps to healing. 

But in addition to helping children and adults caught in trafficking, I'm so glad you brought up businesses, which is a question I was going to ask you, because as you know, this podcast is largely to business leaders and people within the marketplace who deal with all sorts of individuals.

And having that alert awareness to what's happening in their businesses, whether you are a solopreneur who deals with people, maybe you make soaps or something and you're at a flea market, or maybe you have a lot of 1099 employees, or maybe you have a business with 1,000-5,000 employees, there are ways to spot this. And when you bring the training from Untrafficked into your workplace, you are helping every employee be able to be an advocate for trafficked victims. 

The other thing is that you may be able to help a trafficking victim within your workplace that you don't even know, they may finally feel comfortable enough to come forward. And, worst case scenario, maybe trafficking is happening in your organization, and you don't even know, but it can help to flush it out. 

You mentioned the programs to track people down. This is one of the things that attracted me to Untrafficked originally too, because I've had other people on, like Krista Hull with Redeem and Restore, which is a home in Wisconsin for victims of trafficking, they can come and get healing, restoration, and get back on their feet.

There's safe houses like this around and we try and build them up, support them, show them a path to healing. But we have to find these people. And I was so attracted to Untrafficked because of how Eric explained to me the amount of data and the layers of data and the people involved in law enforcement and FBI and everything that have been involved with Untrafficked that goes to this deep, deep level of finding people.

And I just think that's so incredible. And this, this tip line, like you mentioned, but also when we see these missing children, put something up, put it on Untrafficked. They can't see every single thing that comes up.

They depend on us. We need to be eyes and ears as well. So please make sure we know how to give that information to you. And I also just really want to encourage business owners, please educate your employees about this. Please, because it could be a matter of life and death.

Tami Brown Rodriguez: You know, we, my husband and I own a hair salon. We've had a hair salon for over 40 years. And I cannot tell you how many stylists we've had that have come in and they have bruises or they are visibly shaken.

And before I was involved in the anti-human trafficking space, we would work with women that were abused and we would give them an out. We would give them that. We've moved them into our home.

We've said, this is your opportunity. But with trafficking, it's really difficult because I know for us and my niece, when I found her, it took us four months to place her in a safe home because she didn't even realize she was being trafficked. And so it was complicated.

And I'm thinking about had she went to work, because there's times that she had a job and she went to work, had she gone to work and had seen our materials in the bathroom saying, are you in a situation that you're unsafe? And a phone number for her to call. Had employers hired people who knew how to be a good witness? So we train people how to be a good witness. We want to keep your employees safe.

We want to keep the individual safe and the victim safe. And the way that we do that is a crafted avenue of how to report the situation. But had Dakota gone to work and had those posters that we put up inside of the businesses that have get trained with our Guardian training, had the staff had training of, oh, wait a minute, I think there's something going on with this individual.

There is a program called Rescue America. Rescue America has 600 safe houses across this nation. And if you're in a situation that you can't get out of or you've got somebody, a loved one that is in a situation they can't get out of, they can call Rescue America and they have exit strategists where they can help that individual extract themselves from that dangerous situation.

So it's like a counselor, 24 hours a day, that they can reach out and they build relationships with our victims in order for the victims to learn how to find safety and get into a safe house. I never knew that existed. That is incredible.

And so when you've got even a young person, a 17 year old, a 16 year old, oftentimes they think they know everything and they think that they're in love. And it's an exploitive relationship. We've got an entire network of individuals that love and care for these people that want to help.

I work with them all the time. I'll get a case in where we had a young boy that was groomed in a youth group, and he went through three different states, and this group continued to follow him into these three different states where we were able to find a way to communicate with this young man, talk with him about what his wants are and his desires, and guide him into what healthy, safe relationships look like. 

So there's all kinds of resources that we have, but if you're a business and you want to help with this fight on human trafficking, we really would love to be able to come to your organization, work with you, train your team to be good witnesses and know what to do when you see something.

Linda J. Hansen: That's so good. And I often, it's the last question that I ask my guests. I say, what would you tell employers who need to help employees understand this issue?

But I think you just did. So you answered it before I asked, but it's so important. And you know, I'm glad you mentioned a youth group too, because I just want to remind people that churches are made up of sinners who all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.

And just because someone's in a church doesn't mean they're perfect. And we don't hold judgment against them because we're all sinners. But, it seems so much more painful when it happens in a church because someone's going for the right purposes and for help.

And I actually knew a woman, she was actually in her 40s, I think, when we met. And for about 10 years, she had been really held in bondage. The outside world would have never known the story and her engagement with this church and where she lived and things.

And it was a horrible trafficking situation. And the pain and the emotional trauma, it really opened my eyes. This was a couple decades ago, even, but it really opened my eyes to the enormity of the problem and how we can be blind to hidden sin, and we need to constantly ask God to make us aware and help us to see how to help others and be in tune. Like, I just started noticing things with her. And that's a whole long story. But it's just so heartbreaking that these things with people we trust, it can come up.

And so to parents, to employers, to educators, any law enforcement officials listening, legislators listening, this is so critically important. Please protect our young people, protect our citizens, our adults and our children, and help promote laws that are stricter for those who victimize people through trafficking and sexual abuse. This is, it's just a horrible travesty that happens.

And it's so emotionally damaging, whether it happens as a child or as an adult. And it's something that God can obviously use in a person's life. He promises that all things can work together for good for them that love God and are called according to his purpose.

Like for you, you had abuse, you had situations in your own life that were very, very painful. And you're taking that and choosing not to be a victim. You're choosing to be a victor and helping other victims.

And so, we all have that choice. We can choose to live in anger and unforgiveness and despair, victimhood, or we can say, my experiences can help someone else, whatever it is. And so to anybody out there, one, if you want to get in touch, please, please do contact me, contact Tammy, contact Untrafficked, whether it's about the trafficking issue, but also, I just want to give hope to anybody who's struggling with something, whether it's a trafficking issue or sexual assault, or maybe you're just struggling with something else.

I hope Tammy's story has shown you that there's always hope. And there's always a path to healing. And there's always a way to have your situation bring hope and blessing to someone else.

But we have to make that choice. So I pray this episode has been an encouragement for people, but also very informative. So Tammy, do you have anything else to say before we close?

Tami Brown Rodriguez: You know, the one thing that I would love to share is that we need to understand as a culture that consent is so important. Because the reason why only 1% of victims outcry is because they don't think they're going to be believed. 

And when we had such a huge opportunity with the P. Diddy case, to be able to actually get human trafficking, and really bring it to the forefront. The reason why for P. Diddy the trafficking charges didn't stick, is because it was consensual initially, until it wasn't.

So when she went and started having the relationship with P. Diddy as an adult, it was consensual. And they weaponized that against her because they don't understand forced fraud and coercion.

So if we can't even get something like that prosecuted, what hope does anybody else have where their husband might be trafficking them, their boyfriend may be making them do things on the weekends that they really don't want to do? Consent. So if anybody's out there, and you hear this, and you're in a situation where you're not safe, where you're not consenting, please reach out.

You can do a tip anonymously at untrafficked.org and do a tip. We have hunter analysts that are available to reach out to you and talk to you. If you, anybody knows of somebody in that similar situation, I plead with you.

There is hope on the other side. And our story, my story of abuse, and by me sharing my story sets others free, because we live and die by the power of the spoken word. And so I just encourage you, please let somebody that you love know, and do not suffer in silence any longer, that there is hope.

There are people who are willing to look for you. There are people willing to fight for you. And there are people willing to help you heal.

Linda J. Hansen: Absolutely. In addition to the website, is there a number, just in case people don't have access to the internet, is there a number they could call?

Tami Brown Rodriguez: Not right now. We do have, our tip line is in writing. That's easier for us, but we are working on that.

But if they are in harm's way, we encourage them to call either the Human Trafficking Hotline or Find Rescue America Hotline. Those two numbers would be available.

Linda J. Hansen: Absolutely. And to anybody that may be hearing this, and maybe in that situation, many times in public restrooms, they'll have the number up there. And, there's always somebody who will help you.

There's always somebody. And don't forget to reach out to God, who cares about you more than anyone can. So reach out.

And when you seek Him, you will find Him and He will help you. So we just pray for the safety and healing for anybody in these situations. And we thank you so much for your work.

Thank you.

Tami Brown Rodriguez: My pleasure. God bless.

Linda J. Hansen: You too. Thank you again for tuning in to this episode of the Prosperity 101 podcast. If you’ve enjoyed this episode, please, subscribe, share, and give us a great review. Don’t forget to visit Prosperity101.com to sign our Employers Unleashed™ pledge, to access our entire podcast library, or to discover resources for use in your workplace. Let us know how we can serve you. Contact us today at Prosperity101.com.