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Advocate Series Ep. 4 | Prostitution vs. Trafficking: Is there a difference?
54 Plays5 days ago
About this Episode:
Is prostitution a choice—or another form of trafficking? In this episode of the Advocate Series, survivors share raw stories of addiction, exploitation, and rejection, while Francis Chan reveals how Christ calls us to respond with love, patience, and forgiveness—even when change takes time. Watch full series here
Full Description:
Episode 4 of the Advocate Series confronts one of the most debated questions: Is there a difference between prostitution and trafficking? Through emotional testimonies and biblical teaching, this episode uncovers how coercion, manipulation, and broken identity blur the lines society tries to draw.
You’ll hear from survivors who once believed they “deserved” their pain, only to discover freedom through Christ and the patient, unrelenting love of His people. Pastor Francis Chan draws from Luke 7 to show how Jesus treated the most rejected with dignity, forgiveness, and restoration—and how the Church can do the same today.
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🕒 Episode Timestamps
0:00 – Opening reflection: anger, justice, and God’s call to help others
1:47 – First steps in rescue and restoration
3:06 – Survivors experiencing real love for the first time
4:21 – The challenge of trust and patience in recovery
5:25 – When help is rejected: what do we do?
6:54 – A young man’s struggle: “I can earn more in one night on the streets”
7:47 – Identity shattered: seeing yourself as an object
8:27 – Survivor story: loneliness, depression, and the lure of prostitution
10:00 – “I thought I was just a prostitute, not trafficked”
11:35 – Stigma, rejection, and believing lies about worth
12:40 – Hopelessness, drugs, and praying for a way out
13:54 – Prostitution vs. trafficking: is there really a difference?
15:28 – Luke 7: Jesus and the woman labeled a sinner
16:40 – Seeing people as children of God, not objects
18:22 – Survivor testimony: meeting a mentor who wouldn’t stop loving
20:46 – How survivors teach us about God’s grace
21:36 – Gratitude and freedom: “God picked me up out of a dark place”
22:35 – Patience and perseverance in restoration ministry
23:39 – Jesus’ parable: forgiveness, debt, and deeper love
24:51 – Why the rejected often love God most deeply
25:26 – The Church’s opportunity: patience, sacrifice, and redemption
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Transcript
Transforming Anger into Advocacy
00:00:55
Speaker
It was around 2014 when I learned news of my sister being in trafficked. I was so angry I wanted justice. And I became a very angry person.
00:01:06
Speaker
But as a Christian, i knew I couldn't stay angry, mostly because it was killing me. And um I didn't know if we were ever going to get justice the way I wanted it So I remember sitting alone, I was speechless, just thinking in my head to God, how do I get past this?
00:01:26
Speaker
how how How do i ah get over being so angry? And I just felt like God said to me, why don't you help others?
00:01:37
Speaker
Why don't you become educated and take all the stuff you're feeling and turn it around to help somebody else?
Holistic Victim Support
00:01:47
Speaker
The women that are coming in either come from another agency that has told us that someone has called their hotline, or either it comes through um a lawyer who has found out that a girl has been trafficked, or through a family member that has told us that they feel someone's being trafficked and we have investigators.
00:02:08
Speaker
We bring them into our home and we start with assessing them. What are their needs mentally, physically? That's what we start with. We don't start by trying to throw a whole bunch of rules at them.
00:02:21
Speaker
We just want to make them healthy. We had a girl that we rescued that flew in. She was in the hospital after she got here for 12 And the doctors told us if we'd have been two hours later, she would have died.
00:02:35
Speaker
She's in the hospital as I'm speaking to you. And you know what she said to me just yesterday? I've never been loved like this. I've never had anyone love on me like this.
00:02:47
Speaker
We go and we sit with her. We cover her feet and she cries because nobody's ever covered her feet. Anybody that is being held against their will, forced, fraud, or coercion to be in commercial sex against their own will is being trafficked.
00:03:06
Speaker
And it's happening every day. It's all around us. And each girl is different. Every girl that we get, we have to pray that God helps us. We got one girl that her trafficker had beat her head to her retinas were ah detached.
00:03:22
Speaker
But what we had to do, our part in that, was to say, okay, what do we do to get ready to help her? And then we started but busting out the walls. We started trying to rearrange things to make it more comfortable for her.
00:03:36
Speaker
We got in with the Eye Institute. You have to be willing to pay a price to help these girls. And I think an enemy in any ministry, you better be willing to move and to have action and to love even if it's hard, it wasn't easy.
The Struggle to Accept Help
00:03:53
Speaker
The girl that's blind spit in her face, she tried to crawl out the door because she was still hurting. She's angry. She can't trust us until we build that trust.
00:04:04
Speaker
So we get many different faces of girls who have been trafficked, but it all comes down to, I believe, how much we're willing to let God help us love them and to be trained enough that we can help them in all the areas that they need.
00:04:22
Speaker
And so we have to be willing to be very patient, not to judge them, and at the same time, show them Jesus Christ. And some want it and are ready for it and some aren't.
00:04:36
Speaker
So we hope that we can plant the seed for those who don't want it and they if they run away, hopefully they'll remember that we were kind to them. So yes, there is bad that comes with it. Sometimes they leave.
00:04:50
Speaker
and we can't stop them. And sometimes we wonder if they're still alive, we pray for them. But not everybody's ready. and And sometimes they're their worst enemy.
00:05:01
Speaker
They just want to run. So you've got to deal with all of those. You have to pray about it and just keep going. We just want to be the hands and feet of Jesus to love them.
00:05:13
Speaker
And it's not always easy.
00:05:25
Speaker
Have you ever been in a position where you wanted to help someone that was clearly in need, but they didn't accept your help? Maybe they even fought you, harshly turned you down, rejected you.
00:05:40
Speaker
You knew in your heart that you were trying to do the right thing, but they saw you as being self-righteous. I'm sure we've all been in that situation, some more extreme than others, but this is not uncommon.
00:05:55
Speaker
After all, we're sinners who understand we need Christ and we want to live more like him. Yet how many times do we still sin? How many times do we hold someone to a double standard?
00:06:09
Speaker
How often do we not accept help in our own lives? Now some of these things that people need help from, trying to help someone get off their drug addiction,
00:06:20
Speaker
leave an abusive situation, or turn away from the life of prostitution, a situation which is often coerced, sex trafficking, all of these vices from which someone is having a hard time breaking
Prostitution and Self-Worth
00:06:35
Speaker
free.
00:06:35
Speaker
And let's face it, we've all had a hard time breaking something, even if we know it's bad for us. I recently heard this story from a colleague. There was a young man in a job training program after being a prostitute for quite a while, but he didn't finish that program and he went back to the life of prostitution.
00:06:59
Speaker
He told his mentor that while he appreciated the help that the program was providing, he could make the same money he'd made in one week at that job in just one night of selling his body.
00:07:12
Speaker
I believe this man couldn't see himself in the image of God. Somewhere at some time, he was led to believe he was a product.
00:07:27
Speaker
And so why should he live a life that earns him less money if accepting himself as a product seemed to benefit him more? It's easy for us to say, you couldn't pay me enough money to do that, or I'd never do that.
00:07:43
Speaker
because we have a different perspective div about ourselves. we're We're children of God, we're made in his image. We're not to be objects for someone else to use.
00:07:55
Speaker
But once you've been an object, once you've been told that this is all you're worth and knowing that there are plenty to put money in your pocket to prove that you're just an object to them,
00:08:10
Speaker
then it becomes a really hard mentality to change.
00:08:27
Speaker
I knew that I wasn't supposed to feel like that. I knew there was more. I knew there was a better way to live. i just didn't think it was possible for me. I thought it was unattainable.
00:08:40
Speaker
I was a very quiet, shy, withdrawn little girl. i didn't have many friends. I felt very lonely. i never felt like I belonged anywhere. i felt like my mom didn't want me around because I was cramping her party lifestyle.
00:08:55
Speaker
I wanted more, I wanted to be popular, I wanted to have friends. I didn't want to be alone, but I didn't know how. um I was very depressed, I isolated a lot, ah had horrible self-esteem.
00:09:09
Speaker
i just didn't have a very good view of myself growing up, and it was just hard to deal with life, period.
00:09:17
Speaker
made a choice to leave home and go run off with my boyfriend. My dad caught us drinking out in the front yard and he threatened me and said that I could never see him again. So I was like, bye.
00:09:34
Speaker
it It just wasn't a good situation, and it just got worse and worse. um We had a kid together, so that made it even harder. and What ended up happening was I ended up getting hooked on the drug crack cocaine, and i found the world of prostitution.
00:09:53
Speaker
I left one day and didn't come back.
00:10:00
Speaker
I started that when I was 22. I was hanging out with people and we were using drugs and we ran out of money and they said, hey, Brooke, you know, you could help us out. You could go get us more money. This is what I do. This is how you do it.
00:10:15
Speaker
Go ahead. And I went and I turned my first trick and the rest was history.
00:10:25
Speaker
I thought that since I was out walking streets, I was just a prostitute. I thought trafficking was like only in third world countries where they would kidnap you, keep you in a cage, snatch you in a white van, cart you all around the world, making you do stuff constantly, 24 seven and controlling you.
00:10:49
Speaker
But you're being trafficked too. Like I didn't know, I thought I was just a hooker and I brought it on myself. I thought I deserved what I got. Like I didn't know I was being trafficked. I still cannot believe that. There's no difference in it.
00:11:06
Speaker
The world says there is, but there's not.
00:11:11
Speaker
Well, people look down on me a lot. I was talked about. ah People just didn't want to be anywhere near me. they They would look at me and people would literally cross the street to avoid me.
00:11:29
Speaker
um People looked at me like how was the plague. I would hear people saying, oh, she's nasty. Don't let her in your car. Oh, you better watch her around your husband. Oh, I don't want her in my house.
00:11:41
Speaker
I don't want even want her around. she like People treated me really badly. But at the time, I thought I deserved it because i thought I brought it upon myself.
00:11:53
Speaker
So I kind of thought I deserved every bit of what I got out there.
00:12:05
Speaker
I was just jonesing and I wanted more drugs. I knew that I left my husband and my child at home to go run the streets and smoke crack and I wanted to get more drugs into my system so I could forget that that's what I was doing.
00:12:20
Speaker
I um used more and more and more because it hurt me so bad that I was hurting my child, my baby, I was hurting my husband, I was hurting everybody that loved me, I was hurting my dad, like, it was just tearing me up inside. I didn't want to hurt people anymore.
00:12:40
Speaker
I was stuck because i was afraid to stop what I was doing. i didn't think I would be able to succeed.
00:12:51
Speaker
i was praying. wanted out of that life. I wanted so bad to change. It just felt hopeless because I've tried so many other things over the years to try to break the cycle and find change for myself.
00:13:07
Speaker
I didn't want to be a prostitute. I didn't want to die. i didn't want to die a drug addict. I didn't want to do drugs anymore. I wanted to change. I wanted to love myself. I wanted to love my kids.
00:13:19
Speaker
I wanted to find a good husband one day. I wanted to have a meaningful life. I wanted to be able to help people. I wanted to be able to encourage and I just wanted good for myself. I just, I didn't, that's not what I wanted. That's not what I imagined my life would be. When I was five years old, I didn't imagine myself hopping in and out of cars sleeping with men for money.
Is Prostitution a Choice?
00:13:54
Speaker
So is there a difference between prostitution and sex trafficking?
00:14:02
Speaker
This has been a hard question that's being fought all over the world. In our nation, prostitution has been defended as sex work. It's a job, it's a career someone chooses.
00:14:16
Speaker
Who are we to judge or make that illegal for someone? I believe we all know, but I'll go ahead and share this fact. The majority of women, at least 90% of women who were once choosing sex work as their profession will say that they do not or did not want to stay in that profession.
00:14:40
Speaker
Yet many in law enforcement and the judicial are slow to fight sex trafficking because of the common belief that they chose to do this.
00:14:52
Speaker
They were not forced. Never mind coercion or brainwashing and manipulation, right? But how does a church respond to this?
00:15:03
Speaker
How does one respond to, well, they were rescued, but they ran away, they went back, they chose to keep doing this. How do we respond in these situations?
00:15:17
Speaker
I wanna read a passage from Luke 7. When one of the Pharisees invited Jesus to have dinner with him, he went to the Pharisee's house and reclined at the table.
00:15:29
Speaker
A woman in that town who lived a sinful life learned that Jesus was eating at the Pharisee's house. So she came there with an alabaster jar of perfume.
00:15:40
Speaker
As she stood behind him at his feet weeping, she began to wet his feet with her tears. Then she wiped them with her hair, kissed them, and poured perfume on them.
00:15:54
Speaker
and the Pharisee who had invited him saw this, he said to himself, if this man were a prophet, he would know who is touching him and what kind of woman she is, that she's a sinner.
00:16:10
Speaker
You see, in this passage, you have this supposed religious leader and he just can't get over the fact of what this woman had done,
00:16:24
Speaker
the life that she had lived, maybe the way that she appeared at that moment, and it was just like, well, we just stay away from people like that, and yet Jesus somehow saw through her past,
00:16:40
Speaker
Now, obviously, he has advantages over us, but there was something in his example of he just looked at her as this woman who was made in the image of God, and he was just gonna love her regardless of the past.
The Healing Power of Forgiveness
00:16:57
Speaker
In fact, he saw that, look, when you can help and and and help someone like that see their forgiveness and really accept their forgiveness, those are the very people that actually will love God more than the person that that believed they they lived a pretty clean or good life.
00:17:20
Speaker
Jesus shared that he forgave this woman, not because the perfume was of this high value and she was paying him back, not because of the extreme attempt she made in honoring him, but because she needed forgiveness.
00:17:37
Speaker
She needed healing. She needed someone who saw her as anything but an object, but rather ah child of God.
00:17:59
Speaker
i just, I want it out.
00:18:04
Speaker
When I finally became willing to do anything and everything and God saw I was ready in that moment, then he put the catalyst in my path, Miss Brandy. When I was ready, he had her right there, ready for me
00:18:22
Speaker
I knew there was a church up the street from the trailer park that I was living in with my ex and our kids. I knew there was a church up the road. And I wanted to go back to church because the previous year I had ended up um giving my life to Jesus, getting saved. I started attending church.
00:18:43
Speaker
I fell away for a while. And then when I wanted to go back, I walked up to that little church. And right as I was walking up to the door, Miss Brandy was walking up to the door. I looked over at her. I said, hi, is this where church is? She said, yeah, come on in. She put her arm around me.
00:19:01
Speaker
We went inside. We sat down together. She slipped me her phone number. And it just blossomed from there. When I first met Brooke, I didn't even know, you know, what the problems were. or i was just at church and I'm used to greeting people.
00:19:17
Speaker
But the moment that I put my arm around her and I saw that her head was falling down, that she, her shoulders were in, it let me know that she was in need of something, but I didn't know what that need was.
00:19:38
Speaker
first thing i needed I felt I needed to do was to win her trust. It wasn't a matter then about what I had been taught as much as it was making sure that Brooke knew I'm here for you, I love you. No matter what the stage of life that she was in, in my heart I felt that I had to make sure that Brooke knew that someone cared about her and loved her.
00:20:10
Speaker
It's just the fact that she showed me she was there and she wasn't gonna leave my side. Even when I would have meltdowns and cuss and yell and scream and act like a complete jerk to her, she'd still be like, Brookie, you need to talk to me respectfully. I still love you. And she would just talk to me and bring me back. That's love.
00:20:30
Speaker
That is love. that That's what made the difference. She would not stop loving me. She would not leave me alone.
00:20:47
Speaker
But if you ever work with domestic abuse or human trafficking women and you say that they're not teaching you something, then in my opinion, you are not doing what God wants you to do. Because not only do they grow and heal, but we grow from them. They're smart.
00:21:05
Speaker
When God touches them with the anointing, it's powerful. And she has taught me some things that's helped me to be better. And it's going to help me to do better with my safe homes.
00:21:17
Speaker
So I'm thankful for that because we all have to learn from each other. And these are these are very talented women. And God has made them more sensitive and more alert to his Holy Spirit. I believe that.
00:21:33
Speaker
God, he just, he took it from me. He really took it from me. And for that, I just can't thank him enough.
Love and Patience in Healing Objectification
00:21:41
Speaker
It's like he picked me up out of this dark, nasty, ugly place and just yeah right into this beautiful life that he has for me now. It's just amazing.
00:21:53
Speaker
So grateful.
00:22:01
Speaker
As we seek to help restore lives that have been affected by the crime of objectification, not just trafficking, or really any sin in general, as love should always be our first approach, patience is a close second.
00:22:19
Speaker
Not everyone is ready to accept help in the moment you provide it That doesn't mean we should lose hope. It means we must be patient and understanding that we we truly don't understand what they're going through.
00:22:35
Speaker
While the systems in our world like to separate prostitution as a choice and trafficking as a force, We as Christians know that while a person might be caught in a sinful life, sin is what put them there, and we are no different from them.
00:22:55
Speaker
I wanna finish the scripture from Luke 7. Right after the Pharisee said to himself, if this man were a prophet, he would know who is touching him and what kind of woman she is, that she's a sinner.
00:23:09
Speaker
Jesus answered him, Simon, I have something to tell you. Tell me, teacher, he said. Two people owed money to a certain money lender. One owed him 500 denarii and the other 50.
00:23:24
Speaker
Neither of them had the money to pay him back. So he forgave the debts of both. Now which of them will love him more? Simon replied, I suppose the one who had the bigger debt forgiven.
00:23:39
Speaker
You have judged correctly, Jesus said.
00:23:45
Speaker
Jesus says something, well, he's really teaching something so powerful in this passage. And yeah it's kind of the point of all of what we're doing here.
00:24:12
Speaker
God in creating humans, like he wanted this intimate fellowship with us. like He made us in a way that we could be perfectly one with him.
00:24:24
Speaker
And the idea was when we understood what he did for us, his his kindness would lead us into wanting this.
00:24:35
Speaker
and And the idea is is when someone truly understands like how wretched their life was before knowing him and knowing they could be truly forgiven and loved, it's like the more we see just how weak and helpless we were, it would cause us to love him even more.
00:25:03
Speaker
And so there was something about Jesus going after this woman that everyone had rejected and everyone just frowned upon because he knew when she gets it, she's really gonna love me for saving her from this life.
00:25:26
Speaker
And this is why I know it's hard And I know that it's going to be painful and require all sorts of patience and sacrifice on your part.
00:25:38
Speaker
But we have an opportunity to help bring these people in desperate situations to a point of loving Jesus even more than we do.