“The Sound of Freedom”

“The Sound of Freedom”
Fr. Shay Cullen 
25 August 2023 

The unexpected success of the movie The Sound of Freedom, based on a true story about the former CIA agent Tim Ballard who quit his job as an investigator into human trafficking of children for sexual abuse both online and in the real world in the United States, has beaten some of the top grossing movies released this year. The movie made by Angel Studios CEO Neal Harmon, on a small budget of US$14 million, has already grossed US$155 million. It is an adventure crime thriller that tells of the kidnapping and trafficking to Columbia of very young girls and boys in Honduras. There, they are sold to pedophiles and in particular to a jungle-based drug gang leader.

Tim Ballard, portrayed by actor Jim Caviezel, asks his CIA boss for the assignment and support to rescue some of the children and is refused. He resigns and goes on a one-man mission to find and save the children he sees abused on-line and arrests the traffickers. With private funding, he continues his operation. With contacts in Colombia, he sets up an entrapment location on a small island offering huge payments to child traffickers if they bring 50 children for pedophiles at a big child sex party. The traffickers go for it and are arrested by Colombian police. We don’t know if they were actually convicted. 

Tim Ballard wanted to rescue the sister of a boy-victim who was sold to a drug gangster in the jungle where no police would ever go. Tim, posing as a doctor, did find his way to the gangster’s camp and found the child being abused by the gang leader. He rescued the child and restored her to her brother and family. It is a moving and emotionally touching success story. The entrapment operations went on and eventually rescued something like 215 children. The movie credits say that human trafficking of children is a billion trade, as big as drug trafficking.

The Tim Ballad story is not unusual. In the Philippines similar entrapment and rescue operations have been conducted over the years by the Preda Foundation team of undercover social workers working with the police and government social workers. One big entrapment project saved 16 young women and children and was made into a movie, Children of the Sex Trade, by Australian director Luigi Acquisto. Preda children convict 18 of their abusers every year. 

Not all undercover entrapment operations are so successful. Another undercover operation by an investigative group based in Quezon City with the name of Destiny Rescue, funded from America, went foul. Their undercover agents allegedly sexually abused the child-victims before they were rescued. Poising as customers buying the children for the proposed hotel child sex party, the Destiny agents said they had to “try them out,” that is, to have sex with them first. The traffickers agreed for a payment coming from donations gathered in the US. 

The abuse was discovered later when the children revealed to the Preda Foundation social workers and later in their testimony in court that the Destiny Rescue agents had abused them.

The Destiny Rescue management never revealed the names of their undercover agents and they could not be arraigned and the case against them was archived. A big donor of Destiny Rescue operations cancelled their support for the victims of the agents and the human traffickers. Instead, they wrongly stood by the Destiny Rescue agents and management in the Philippines, perhaps foolishly believing the lies spun by the Destiny Rescue management to defend the debacle. That’s one big sin against children that has yet to be confessed and forgiven. 

The human traffickers were, however, convicted after Preda Foundation social workers presented a strong case against them with the trafficked victims strongly testifying.

I repeat this information which I previously wrote. The convicted human traffickers, the two sisters, Gabriela and Roxanne y Marfuri Martirez from Subic, Zambales, are serving three life sentences each in prison deprived of family, home, children, comfort and a productive life. They are intelligent persons. They knew right from wrong, they choose to do evil, to seduce and groom and train five young teenage girls 14 years old and young girls over 18 to be sex workers. They made them believe that by selling themselves to sex tourists, they would have an exciting, well-paid life.

The Martirez sisters trafficked and abused the minors and others for money believing that selling young people for sex, as millions do, is just ok because it is common practice in the Philippines and elsewhere although illegal. Only child rights defenders and protectors protest and campaign against it. 

Now the movie, The Sound of Freedom, will bring fresh awareness to the evil of this corrupt trade. One line in the movie says it all, “Children are not for sale.” However, the fact is, they are being sold for sexual abuse by the hundreds of thousands monthly. 

The Philippines is a nation of strict laws against child abuse and trafficking with flexible interpretation by the populace and weak or sometimes no implementation by the authorities. Some local governments issue licenses and permits to operators of sex bars, resorts and hotels for perhaps a share in the profits or access to the young girls. 

Some police and officials frequent these places and indulge in sex activity. It is just pleasure to them. A research project by the Center for Women’s Resources discovered that a woman or child is sexually abused every five minutes in the Philippines as if this is a national pastime and the abuse is seldom reported. When the crime is reported, it is not always noted in the police blotter or acted upon as police manipulate the statistics to show a low crime rate and success by doing nothing. 

Much of the modern world has lost its respect for human rights and the rights of the child in recent years. One in every three or four children have experienced sexual abuse in the home or in the neighborhood and many suffer trauma. 

These victims of trafficking and sex abuse are the children of neglect, boys and girls as young as 12, the throwaway children of broken homes. Abused and raped at home, they run away to the streets. They have no trust in government, no assistance other than being jailed in the Bahay Pag-asa. They are quickly recruited by the human traffickers and pimps. They are the abused abandoned children of society. 

A study conducted in 2021 by Unicef, Interpol and Ecpat International, all great advocates of child rights, discovered that among Filipino children between the ages of 12 and 17, one in every five had suffered sexual abuse over the internet, especially during coronavirus lockdowns. That is an estimated two million abused Filipino children in total. Many end up being victims of human trafficking. If you have any way to help stop this, help us do it. 

www.preda.org