Child Sex Trafficking: Focus First on the Traffickers, Then the Victims

Editor’s Note: Geo’s memoir, Brothers of the Cloth, a true account of special mission unit soldiers, is now available for pre-order. You can purchase it here. 

(With SOFREP reader Ms. Joie Black in mind)

“Geo, you are officially charged with gross insensitivity, wanton indecorum, and indifference to the most heinous crimes against humanity. These are formidably damaging and damning charges, Geo… how do you plead, sir?”

“Guilty by statement, but innocent by actions, your honor.”

“Then explain yourself, sir… and it better be good.”

“Very well, your honor.”

I wanted to be the hero, me… I wanted to be one that everyone could see. I wanted to bust down the door of the dank cellar dungeon, rush in with my gat out in front, and holler:

“FREEZE, FREEZE, SCUMBAG — LET ME SEE YOUR HANDS! GET ON THE GROUND NOW WITH YOUR HANDS BEHIND YOUR BACK — NOW!!”

I wanted to be the hero who cuffs up the scumbag trafficker, unties the petite elementary schoolgirl with the blond hair and the pretty white Susie-Cue face… then hoists her on my shoulders and splits the scene.

I wanted to be the hero, walk the media gauntlet with Susie-Cue still on my shoulders and make trite statements for the camera like:

“If I can save only one child it would be worth all the trouble.”

“I’m not the hero; I was just doing my job — it is the kids who are the real heroes.”

I wanted to be the hero and see the admiration on the faces of the fathers who wish they could be who I am. To see the love in the luminous eyes of the mothers who wish they could be with who I am. I wanted to be the hero.

But what about the trafficker scumbag you left laying on the dank basement floor? He’s back out on the street searching for another victim to traffic because a hero took his last one. He’s back out in the same neighborhood as the recently liberated Susie Cue. Boy, he found himself one too… he found him a new little girl who even goes to the same school as Susie Cue. Her name is Mary-Kay and she is in the fourth grade — Susie Cue is in the fifth grade. One home in the hood is overjoyed; another just learned what is hell.

Two little ragamuffin hoodlum boys in Mary Kay’s hood went to the corner convenience store intent on stealing them some Snickers bars. They did a great job, skillfully employing a diversionary tactic whilst dropping candy bars into their pants. They emptied the display box, so they did. They paid for their decoy soda and left. They had done it; they had cleaned the store completely dry of Snickers bars.

Funny thing though: the next time they went back to that store there was a new display box full of “fresh” Snickers bars. They could steal those, but then there would be another box, then another box, then… another.

You can’t shoplift Kwik-E-Mart out of Snickers bars; you can’t victim-rescue human trafficking out of business.

You can liberate a child, but in effect, all you have done is create shelf space for new, and likely younger, product. You have saved Susie Cue and replaced her with Mary Kay, two grades younger than her.

Where did I go wrong trying to be the hero? The scumbag… what about the traffic network player scumbag and the rest of the traffic network players? They are the ones kidnapping Mary Kay, pimping her, moving her, pimping her again, and selling her to another network. What about the networks for the love of Jesus Christ and the Holy Ghost??

They are too much work. They are dangerous to tangle with. There is no glory in catching them. I can’t walk the media gauntlet and get the adoration of the fathers and the love of the mothers. I’m not the hero in that level of the hunt. I want the thrill, the glory, the attention… the love, and adoration. I can’t get that in the hunt for the networks.

But the networks generate the sex trade. Rescue a kid and another one fills the void. Destroy the network and the traffic stops. It all makes pristine, crystalline, logical sense, but let’s face it… it’s just too hard, just too much work, and just too little glory — let someone else do it.

If you want a function stopped, you remove the driver; none of the hardware on your computer will function without a driver. Human sex traffic of minor children is a function. To make it stop, remove the driver — the network players.

Snatching traffic victims out of captivity is a foolish and nonsensical form of Liam Neeson movie vigilantism; don’t actually do that in real life, Ace. Grab the kid and put her in your car and drive off — illegal as hell to transport a minor who is not your child. Only an LEO is authorized by law to do that.

I worked in Counter Human Traffic full-time for four years. Organizations that handle liberated victims are important; the role they fill is important, but they have zero to do with obliterating the driver of the human traffic scourge.

I worked traffic network seek and destroy. In one case I spent 19 months trailing and recording the activities of a single network kingpin. When the feds finally decide they wanted him taken down he went down hard, and his network was obliterated — no glory, no fatherly admiration, no motherly love.

What do I have to show for it? A paltry paycheck, but the ability to reenact the end of the Saving Private Ryan movie without having to ask people if I had been a good enough man in my life.

By Almighty God and with honor,
geo sends

This article was originally published in September 2020.