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The Red Cord is Southwest Oklahoma's Anti Human Trafficking Organization

Could this happen to your family?

It’s Friday night and you’ve just left your 12-year-old son, David, at his friend’s house for a sleepover with four other boys. You know Nathan and his family, so you feel content that he will be fine as you drive away looking forward to a quiet evening at home.

All is well until you get this text at midnight: Hi Mom. Can we go get ice cream?

You immediately grab your keys and make the quick drive to pick up David. You know it’s not ice cream he wants. It’s the code you’ve created that means: Come get me now!

David tells the other boys there is an emergency at home and his mom is on the way to get him. As you make the drive home, you find out the truth: “Nathan was showing nude photos on his phone to me and the other guys. I felt really uncomfortable and wanted to get out of there. I’m sorry, Mom. I won’t go back there again.”

First, you take a deep breath. This isn’t David’s fault. Calmly, you say, “You did the right thing, son, by texting me. I’m glad we had the code already in place. We’ll talk more about the situation tomorrow.” David has been empowered to make the right choices because you’ve prepared him for this uncomfortable and potentially dangerous situation from escalating. You know that impressionable preteen boys are easily influenced. They don’t want to seem weak around their friends. But the habit can lead to a pornography addiction. You’ve helped him make good choices now to prevent that.

Meanwhile, when tomorrow comes, you have a decision to make – do you tell the boy’s parents what happened?

What would you do?

School is out for the summer in our area. While that brings some time to rest and relax, it also brings more time for your children to spend on the internet. ECPAT International (the world’s largest influencing network solely focused on ending the sexual exploitation of children, https://ecpat.org/) reports that one in three internet users are children. Human traffickers are aware your children are more available in the summer months and vulnerable to their cleverly disguised attempts to trap them into a life of slavery.

June is National Safety Month. The Red Cord wants to help you keep your children safe from traffickers. We have some information and resources prepared for you. Please download and read:

Safety Tips for Teens and Parents of Teens: http://theredcord.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/10Safetytips-parents.pdf

Safety Tips for Children: http://theredcord.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/10Safetytips.pdf

What more can you do? Please read the June blog from Ahsha, The Red Cord President: https://theredcord.org/blog/

Foster Care Awareness Month

How can you change Carrie’s story?

This month Carrie* will turn 18. While most teenagers celebrate that age as the time they start to enter adulthood, for Carrie, that means she will be too old to stay in the foster care system. Friends in her high school (the fifth high school she has attended), will graduate in a few weeks. Not Carrie. She doesn’t know what the future holds. The family she is with this time seems to genuinely care for her. Not all the families she has lived with since she was 10 years old have been this caring. Some have been abusive and she quickly found herself in another house. Soon, Carrie knows she won’t be in this home anymore. Or anyone’s home. She isn’t ready for this.

Carrie represents only one of the 7,800 children in Oklahoma this past year who have a foster care story. https://www.fostercarecapacity.com/states/oklahoma

What could happen to Carrie? Because she has been in the foster care system, she is automatically vulnerable. She could be one of the 60% of children lured into sex trafficking.

Jacquetta Lenhardt, a Court Appointed Special Advocate (CASA) of Southwest Oklahoma, describes what could happen to Carrie. “Children from foster homes are vulnerable because of instability. Because she doesn’t know whom to trust. She has experienced trauma because she doesn’t have a stable home. Children are looking for acceptance. They feel abandoned. Traffickers know this about foster home children. They know where to find them. They know where to search for them on the internet. They lure them with the promise that they will always be there to take care of them.”

How can you change Carrie’s story?

Jacquetta says you can train to be a CASA worker. You can learn how to build trust and friendship with a child and find out if harm is coming to a child in the foster care system. Learn more http://www.casaswok.com/

She also says to foster parents or those close to foster families, “Children want to know they are loved, valued, have worth, and are important. They need to know about the dangers of trafficking. You can be one of the people who say, ‘I will not let her story end this way.”

*Representative name.

Voices from the Past

During this Women’s History month, let’s honor the women, past and present, who give voice to the cause of freedom. From the time of slavery in America, you remember the name of Harriet Tubman, but another woman with the same first name you may not know is Harriet Jacobs. This fascinating woman from North Carolina endured slavery and sexual harassment. She escaped but stayed hidden in horrible conditions for seven years. Over time, she finally gained her freedom, began a school and wrote her powerful autobiography, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, published in 1861, that detailed her life and captured the horror of slavery for so many.

Sounding the Message Today

Slavery continues today, although it looks much different. Women make up 49% of all trafficking victims. Additionally, girls make up 23% of the total number. Sexual exploitation has a global share of 59%, followed by forced labor (34%). In the past 15 years, women and girls together represent more than 70% of the identified trafficking victims. (Source: UN)

For nearly six years, Rebecca Bender was trapped in the dark, violent world of sex trafficking. When she escaped her trafficker, she knew she wanted to fight to change culture and offer hope to survivors, so she launched Elevate Academy. It is currently the largest online school for human trafficking survivors in the world. She works closely with the Oregon Department of Justice and is a leading voice in the fight against trafficking nationally. Find out more about Rebecca: https://www.rebeccabender.org/

Being Fierce and Free Today

How can you be a voice for the enslaved and shape history as a freedom fighter? Learn more and get involved here in southwest Oklahoma: https://theredcord.org/upcoming/
Be a prayer warrior — https://theredcord.org/prayer/
Join our Text to Pray team. Receive a prayer alert when prayer is urgently needed.

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https://verified-broadcast-9201-5jcrmm.twil.io/subscribe.html

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Want To Set The Record Straight?

The Red Cord strives to be Oklahoma’s thought leader on Human Trafficking. We demystify common misconceptions so you can have confidence you’re spreading the right information.

Do You Know Someone Or An Organization That Needs To Be Trained?

The Red Cord offers professional training for the community, schools, churches, first responders, hotels, and casinos. We are blessed with many expert public speakers.