OPINION:
The message of the box-office hit “Sound of Freedom” is strong and simple: “God’s children are not for sale.”
And yet even as this movie has captured our nation’s attention, its critics are trying to steal the stage, accusing the production of promoting conspiracies and being inaccurate, extremist, and overtly political in its portrayal of sex trafficking. These accusations are unfounded and disparaging of the real-life heroics of Tim Ballard, who is portrayed in the movie, but there seems to be a darker reason why this film is being slandered.
Seeing the cold reality of child sex trafficking in a movie like “Sound of Freedom” makes one glaring point very clear: We need to stop criminal exploiters of children and protect the vulnerable at all costs.
But when translating this into a policy agenda to end human trafficking for good, there’s a problem: The actions needed to achieve this run directly in contrast with the agenda of far-left progressives who make up many of our nation’s elites.
Their agenda depends on the continuation of open-border policies, relaxed penalties for criminals, and other measures that are hurting, not helping, those who are vulnerable to these crimes. To end human trafficking, especially child sex trafficking, we need to turn the tide.
Here is what our country must fight for:
First, our country needs to implement stronger penalties for perpetrators who will continue their evil behavior if consequences are not imposed. We must hold all those involved with human trafficking strictly accountable under the law, meaning both the “buyers” and “sellers” of human beings for sexual exploitation.
Unfortunately, in big cities and many states, the left has supported more relaxed criminal penalties. Ultraliberals have apparently done so through misguided efforts to promote social justice, but they are jeopardizing public safety and leaving little recourse for the people they should be trying to help.
Just recently, progressive members of the California Legislature killed a bill that would make child trafficking a “serious felony” and thus raise the severity of the crime to the level of murder or rape. Conversely, in Mexico, local leaders have criminalized and shut down strip clubs, instituting harsher penalties for human trafficking.
It is worth noting that those who have seen this crime in action all support harsher penalties, because they know they work.
Next, our country must secure the border. The U.S.-Mexico border is a massive channel for the smuggling of innocent women and children, many of whom are trapped in prostitution for the rest of their lives.
“Sound of Freedom” depicts one instance of a sex trafficker attempting to cross through a port of entry with false documentation for a child, but stories of vulnerable migrants being forcibly kidnapped or lured into sex work have been widely reported for decades.
Securing the border will end the supply of vulnerable migrants for traffickers to take advantage of, but the left has never been more against the policies that would make this a reality.
Finally, we must stop the demand for commercial sex exploitation. As Tim Ballard, the hero of “Sound of Freedom,” said, human trafficking is the fastest-growing criminal enterprise in the world. Too often, Americans believe it is not happening on our shores, but the reality is that Americans are the largest consumer of child exploitation, and the U.S. is a top location where this exploitation takes place.
Virtually no progress can be made in ending human trafficking if it is this easy for people to access sexually explicit material. Restricting more explicit online content, ending trafficking advertisements on social media, and getting back to a religiously centered society are just some ways to strip traffickers of this demand.
Yet the modern-day left is unrivaled in its support of child sexualization and demonization of religious groups, especially Christians.
Most Americans watching “Sound of Freedom” probably came out of the movie wondering: How does the terrible practice of child exploitation continue to occur in our modern world? In our country? Perhaps the criticism of this movie is part of the answer: While we name-call and fight among ourselves about alleged extremism, the traffickers and child exploiters continue to win.
“Sound of Freedom” has shown the world who really cares about protecting the vulnerable. For the movie’s supporters, it’s not the critic who counts.
• Kristen Ziccarelli is a policy analyst at the America First Policy Institute’s Center for Homeland Security & Immigration.
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