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Advocate Series Ep. 2 | Why Does God Allow Suffering? Understanding Human Trafficking Through a Biblical Lens
55 Plays8 days ago
About this Episode:
Why would a loving God allow human trafficking to exist? In this powerful episode of the Advocate Series, Francis Chan and survivors wrestle with the hard questions, share raw stories of exploitation, and reveal how the Church can recognize the signs and respond with compassion and action. Watch full series here.
Full Description:
The Advocate Series continues as pastor and author Francis Chan joins with survivors, advocates, and leaders to confront one of the most difficult questions: Why does God allow such evil?
Through survivor testimony and biblical reflection, this episode sheds light on how traffickers prey on vulnerabilities like poverty, addiction, and lack of identity—and how grooming and coercion often replace the “kidnap” myths many imagine.
This is not just education; it’s preparation. Like CPR for the soul, learning to spot the signs of trafficking can save lives. The Church is called not to turn away but to notice, act, and bring the hope of Christ into the darkest places.
🔔 Subscribe to Trafficking Free America and join the mission to advocate hope for the hopeless.
🕒 Episode Timestamps
0:00 – Opening question: Why would God allow this?
1:12 – The reality of sin and human suffering
2:46 – Judgment and responsibility: God’s call to act
3:48 – Defining human trafficking: fraud, force, coercion
4:35 – Survivors share: “I didn’t know I was trafficked”
6:07 – Boys as victims: breaking stereotypes
7:04 – Vulnerabilities traffickers exploit (poverty, abuse, identity loss)
8:03 – Grooming explained: psychological manipulation before violence
9:19 – Survivors describe exploitation and hopelessness
10:14 – The disturbing power of manipulation and control
11:12 – Survivor story: grooming into “family” and false protection
13:16 – From promises to violence: trapped in the life
15:00 – Survivor testimony: “something died in me”
16:05 – Why noticing matters: human trafficking as CPR training
16:50 – Building stronger communities that traffickers can’t infiltrate
18:06 – Preview of next episode: Grooming and prevention
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Transcript
Why does a loving God allow suffering?
00:00:54
Speaker
So sometimes we hear these horrifying stories and one of the questions that comes to our minds is, how could a loving God allow this to happen in the first place?
00:01:12
Speaker
And that's tough one.
00:01:16
Speaker
And we won't always have the answer to that question. But one thing I will ask is, Have you ever hurt someone else?
00:01:28
Speaker
Obviously the answer is yes. Well, why did God allow you hurt that person? Why didn't he strike you dead before you hurt someone else?
00:01:45
Speaker
You see, my point is, as long as we are sinners, there will be victims of our sin. And to try to play the role of God, of God, why didn't you strike me dead before I heard that?
00:02:00
Speaker
That's not a question that not that many people ask. You know, we say about others, well, why did you let them live? But we don't think about ourselves. There's something in Scripture where God allows us to see just our sin.
00:02:19
Speaker
you know, Scripture teaches that the wages of sin is death. Now that's not just death for us, it's death for others. There's things we do as human beings that bring death to others, pain toward others.
00:02:36
Speaker
And while we won't understand it all at the end, we also have to understand that we weren't really placed on this earth to judge God, but at the end we are actually judged by Him.
00:02:50
Speaker
and the question is not, Do we get to come before Him and say, hey God, why'd you do this? Why'd you do this? But a lot of it's gonna be, why didn't you do anything?
00:03:01
Speaker
There are stories all through scripture of horrible things that happened on the earth and
00:03:12
Speaker
There are victory stories of believers filled with the Spirit doing something to rectify that. And so I get it, those questions are there, but I just want you to consider your own life at this time.
00:03:28
Speaker
It's very easy to question others, it's very easy to question God, but we're here to look at ourselves and consider what we've done and what we haven't done.
Understanding human trafficking and its causes
00:03:48
Speaker
Anybody that is being held against their will, forced, fraud or coercion to be in commercial sex against their own will is being trafficked.
00:03:59
Speaker
And it's happening every day. Human trafficking and the slaving of certain populations, whether that be sexual slavery, whether that be labor trafficking, labor slavery, I mean, it's generally taking people against their will and having them do things for their benefit.
00:04:13
Speaker
I don't think there's a difference between the trafficking and the prostitution. i don't think anyone gets into this because they want to. They had no other—they believe they believed they had no other choice. they They needed to live. They needed to eat. They were homeless, things like that.
00:04:27
Speaker
um I still don't think it's something they wanted to do, right? that They engaged in this because they felt like they had no other choice. And and that goes back to what i think the trafficker takes advantage of. that this person is vulnerable, they don't feel like they have any other choices, and it could be that they just want to eat, they want a roof over their head, they want to feel loved, they want to feel special, things like that. But when you really just break it all down, it's all the same. I don't think anyone gets into this because they want to. This is not something that they get up in the morning and say, this is what I want to do now.
00:04:58
Speaker
I thought that since I was out walking the 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.
00:05:21
Speaker
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.
00:05:34
Speaker
The world says there is, but there's not. You know, there's so many different ways that people are trafficking. girls and boys that were learning something new every single day.
00:05:48
Speaker
Some of the girls that we got in our house were sold by their parents. Some of the girls that we got in our house started making decisions at an early age to rebel and then end up getting with someone that held them captive.
00:06:00
Speaker
You know, we often think it's a female pronoun. We often think of the girl or the or the woman. But the boy is often left out of that conversation. But we know the boy is just as much as the victim, as
Addressing the oversight of boys in trafficking
00:06:10
Speaker
a girl. You think about just women as being involved in the sex trade and and men trying to get these women to sell their bodies for sex, but you always miss what I call now the one percenters.
00:06:21
Speaker
those those boys who are actually being sought after by pedophiles. And I've been in law enforcement 32 years and worked every aspect of law enforcement. That never occurred to me that that could happen to a boy.
00:06:32
Speaker
Now what I did, went back to my team and said, hey, we need to incorporate in our monthly Johnsting operations the solicitation and the lowering of not only young girls,
00:06:42
Speaker
but young boys as well. Usually the sexual abuse cases involving family, the kids that have been victims of that later in life because of their victimization earlier on, tend to be more vulnerable to the types of people that would traffic them.
00:06:56
Speaker
the The trauma and the impact of those experiences on those kids early in life or in their teenage years and they run away and different things like that can lead to them being more vulnerable to being victimized by other perpetrators.
00:07:08
Speaker
One of the really alarming things is, especially with our children, is this lack of self-worth and identity that they experience in their own home or in their own life. And then the traffickers start to affirm them and to brag on them and to build them up.
00:07:22
Speaker
And so, you know, poverty, addiction, mental health, a lack of self-identity are sort of the four main drivers that we've seen around the last 10 years that drive people into this kind of environments.
00:07:33
Speaker
I am having to use my body to provide um for my needs. If I need my fix, I'm gonna have to go service somebody.
00:07:44
Speaker
If I wanna go buy an outfit, if I wanna eat, if I wanna have a place to take a shower, I'm gonna have to do this. If you have to support any kind of part of your life by using your body, you're being trafficked.
The manipulative nature of exploitation
00:07:59
Speaker
but It's not the kidnapping style that you may see or you may see on TV or believe what it is. And a lot of times, the force isn't happening right away. lot of these kids, when you look at their background, they're searching for that love. Okay, he loves me. He treats me good. He buys me nice things. I'll do this, right? I'll do this.
00:08:15
Speaker
And before you know it, even when we get these reports and we hear the interviews that I wanted to stop, I told them no. then now you start to see the force. That's where the physical violence comes in, right? it Most of the time, it starts off nonviolent.
00:08:31
Speaker
You know, it's more psychological, but then it really does turn into the violence. Like, that becomes the norm um for for just about all the girls that that we see.
00:08:45
Speaker
When we see and know of God's creation, we know that we as humans are God's most precious creation. Taking advantage of the vulnerabilities of someone is what exploitation is.
00:09:00
Speaker
Exploitation, when used as a force or coercion, is basically what trafficking is Survivors have described how they felt like they essentially died and that their trafficker convinced them that they were the only hope or savior available.
00:09:19
Speaker
That idea alone is so disgusting. To even hear that that type of manipulation can exist in our country where the majority call Jesus our savior, it's baffling, it's it's upsetting.
A survivor's grooming experience
00:10:14
Speaker
It was this guy and he was sitting on the couch. So I sat there and I was talking to him and like within like 30 seconds I told this man my whole life story, you know. He was like, why you out so late? Like where your mama and him at? like Why you hanging out with them? You young.
00:10:29
Speaker
And I just told him everything. told him how I was adopted, told him how i was sexually abused, all this stuff. And it's just...
00:10:42
Speaker
He had this little plastic black bag tied up. And I guess he had like clothes in it. Like he had some plaid shorts that were like striped.
00:10:54
Speaker
And there was these black bamboo sandals with the thong sandals and a thong in there. Well, he didn't, he handed me the bag. He was like, you know, you should clean up and stuff. Cause I know that you probably eat been in your clothes all day.
00:11:12
Speaker
And so when I got out the tub, I had my clothes on and now she was ready to talk to me. I had no idea this was my grooming process that, you know, it showed that he was going to protective over me and he'll stand up for me and he made her talk to me and all this stuff, right? That's the grooming process for kids.
00:11:26
Speaker
How you groom somebody into trusting you even in an instant like that. When she was talking to me she was like, I didn't mean to be in your business, but when you were talking to JB, like, like I've been through so much in my life too. Like my stepfather raped me my whole childhood. That's how i ran away to California. I came out here, girl, when I was 15, like, you know?
00:11:41
Speaker
I was like, where are you going? She was like, want to work. And I'm like, work? Where do you work at You know, like, I really didn't know about strip clubs neither. i didn't know about that kind of stuff when I was a kid. So she was like, oh, like I'm an escort. And I'm like, an escort? What's that? And she was like well, i just assist men on dates. Like, I go, I show them a good time. i just have conversation. I talk with them, you know, make them feel good. And they pay me.
00:11:59
Speaker
And I might pay you. And she was like, yeah, like, I'd rather get paid for it than do it for free. And literally, I remember saying to my mom, that's hoeing, like that's prostitution.
00:12:09
Speaker
Like, oh no, I don't wanna that. And she was like, well, that's not how you should look at it. You already been doing it for free. You over here liking guys and doing all that, right? So it's that immediate response.
00:12:21
Speaker
She's like, it's not like that, trust me. Like we're like a family here. It's like a family union. JB ain't gonna never let nobody, nothing happened to you. Everything is regulated. All the prices are set, right? So my grooming process started. And so it seems and it sounds easy.
00:12:35
Speaker
So it sounds good at 11. I got protection. I got somewhere to live. I got somewhere that someone's gonna feed me and I got people that's gonna love me.
00:12:50
Speaker
And he started telling me about the game. You know, like, you see all these hoes out here? like They all ain't got no instruction. And that's how you get broke. That's how you you know that's how you can get beat up.
00:13:01
Speaker
You need to be ah under instruction. You know you need protection. They all out here loose. So it was talking about someone else in order to validate what was good between me and him.
00:13:16
Speaker
Told her to take me with him and teach me. And I remember it was just like this.
00:13:24
Speaker
terrified look on her face.
00:13:28
Speaker
Like just terrified because she knew what was getting ready to happen. And so I started crying because I'm like, wait, what? You just told me that I'm not going to have to work. And she was like, she was like, JB, I don't think we thinking it's through, you know, like the one time out here, like, it's you know, it's not really, you know, and it was just back and forth conversation.
00:13:47
Speaker
And I was just crying. And all I can remember is being in that front seat like, what did I do?
00:13:56
Speaker
And then he like grabbed me, he snatched me up, he hit me. No, like it was just like a like, get your up. Get your Like, you been crying for You done been through too much in your life to be crying about some like this. Like having somebody to talk to you like that.
00:14:09
Speaker
And he was just dragging me like, you ain't got no home. Your mama putting locks in the windows. Y'all nobody want your like, you know, you might as well stay here. Like in hearing that, it was like everything I had told him that night, he used it against me. He flipped it against me.
00:14:22
Speaker
And so a part of me is like, I remember like just screaming and being like, and all the girls that were out there didn't even do nothing because they scared. So they immediately put their head down because they don't want to break, be out of pocket, which is like breaking, on you know, making eye contact and stuff.
00:14:37
Speaker
He grabbed me up and he was just like, oh, that happened to you. You still want to like, you know, like, this is a better way. Like, I got you. and Like, this ain't gonna be nothing.
00:14:48
Speaker
This is gonna be easy. And a part of you is crazy because a person don't even have to beat you to death to traffic you. It was literally like, ah already know how to do this.
00:15:01
Speaker
I probably turned like 14 dates that night.
00:15:05
Speaker
So at 11, I had sex with like 14 men. It was like that night something died in me. Like, it was just like, I got myself here. Well, my auntie used to call me fast. Everybody used call me a fast little girl. Well, hey, they said all I'm gonna ever be able to do is lay on my back.
00:15:22
Speaker
Might as well get paid for it. And so riding in that car, leaving, the sun coming up, and then you walk into McDonald's, you know?
00:15:33
Speaker
And I remember just this look of disgust on people's face and nobody said nothing to me. Like, they know what you're doing, you know? They know where you coming from. and nobody say nothing.
00:15:44
Speaker
Like, how did you not see this little bitty girl with hardly nothing, anything on? Like, you know, look like I've been up all night for hours. Nothing, like, how did you not say anything?
The need for community awareness in combating trafficking
00:16:05
Speaker
Throughout this study, you'll learn more about how human trafficking happens in our communities. and we'll become better equipped on how to possibly notice these signs.
00:16:16
Speaker
Think of it like learning CPR. It doesn't matter how often it happens, it matters that it could happen. And to be prepared is to increase the chances of saving someone's life.
00:16:30
Speaker
This is why we're teaching you about human trafficking and how to respond to the signs. can you imagine how strong a community can be if every single person knew the signs of human trafficking?
00:16:43
Speaker
How hard it would be for traffickers or buyers to infiltrate?
00:16:50
Speaker
Next time we'll be learning a little bit more about how a child or adult is groomed into being trafficked, which is a lot more common than kidnapping. It's great insight to know how it happens so we can look for or notice possible signs and help prevent it.
00:17:09
Speaker
Because according to studies and testimonies, you may have heard, it's not about if types of grooming happens, it's when.