You’ve watched the film Sound of Freedom, but now what? Here’s how you can help!

The recently released movie Sound of Freedom covers an important issue of child sex trafficking in South America. While this film has ignited conversations, there is significant work to be done to address this complex topic, and every concerned citizen can play a role in making a difference.

We at NCOSE invite you to take action and be part of the solution by focusing on mass-scale prevention.

Why Mass-scale Prevention?

The case for Mass-scale prevention is perhaps best illustrated through the famous Parable of the River, summarized as follows:

One day a group of villagers was working in the fields by a river. Suddenly someone noticed a baby floating downstream. A villager rushed out and rescued the baby, brought it to shore and cared for it. During the next several days, more babies were found floating downstream, and the villagers rescued them as well. Before long there was a steady stream of babies floating down the river. Soon the whole village was overwhelmed, trying desperately to keep up with all the babies in need of rescue.

Finally, a villager asked: “Shouldn’t we go upstream to discover how all these babies were getting into the river in the first place? If we can find that out, we can stop the problem at the source, and no more babies will be in danger of drowning!”

Organizations who are focused on rescuing the babies in the river—or, for our purposes, helping victims of sexual exploitation—are doing extremely critical work! But if we don’t also travel upstream to address the root causes, the problem will never be stopped and there will always be a constant flow of victims that we can’t keep up with.

We can’t wait for the harm to happen. We can’t wait for people to be victimized. We must prevent victimization by going upstream.

That’s why NCOSE’s mission is to focus on cutting off the root sources that are causing mass amounts of sexual abuse and exploitation. And we invite you to join us in this mission!

How you can help:

STOP SEX BUYERS, THE PRIMARY CAUSE OF SEX TRAFFICKING

Stopping sex buyers is the only way to truly prevent sex trafficking. Sex buyers are the root cause of sex trafficking. Those who seek to buy sexual access to children, women, and vulnerable individuals create the demand that motivates sex traffickers to force or coerce people into the sex trade in the first place. If there were no men willing to pay for sexual access to exploited persons, sex traffickers would have no reason to do what they do.

No buyers=No business!

ACTION: Ask your state legislators to increase accountability for sex buyers, to prevent sex trafficking!

Contact Your Local Elected Officials RE: Demand

The only way to end sex trafficking and all exploitation is deceptively simple: we have to stop those who create the demand by buying sex.

Stop the sex buyers! No buyers = no business.

Research from around the world has shown this is not only a possibility – it’s working! By creating deterrents such as fines charged to sex buyers—even sending letters to their homes once they’re charged, we stem the endless flow of victims needed to fulfill the demand buyers create. Those fines can be used to fund programs needed for survivors.

Please take 30 SECONDS to send this email to your local elected officials, asking them to adopt policies that increase accountability for sex buyers. NCOSE can support officials with research, customized legislation, and training.

PREVENT ACCESS OF PREDATORS TO CHILDREN

The digital age offers sexual predators and exploiters almost limitless access to children, through online platforms and communication services. An estimated 82% of child sex crimes begin with contact on social media platforms.

The only way to stop this epidemic is to move the tech industry to take responsibility for making their platforms safer. The tech industry has the power to protect children at a massive scale—when they make safety changes to their products, it immediately impacts the millions of children who use them.

Here are a few ways you can call for greater responsibility and accountability for tech companies!

ACTION: Insist Instagram & Snapchat Prioritize Child Safety!

Instagram and Snapchat are both common platforms where sexual predators access children. For this reason, they were both placed on NCOSE’s 2023 Dirty Dozen List—an annual campaign that calls on 12 mainstream entities to change problematic policies and practices that are facilitating exploitation.

ACTION: Ask Your Members of Congress to Cosponsor the EARN IT Act!

The EARN IT Act is a crucial child protection bill that would allow tech companies to be held accountable for knowingly facilitating the distribution of child sexual abuse material. Sign this quick action asking your members of congress to support this vital legislation!

ACTION: Thank Google Chromebooks for Defaulting to Safety!

Google responded to advocacy by automatically activating high safety settings on all Chromebooks issued to K-12 students. Sign the p etition thanking Google for protecting the millions of kids that use their devices!

MOVE CORPORATIONS TO REJECT PROFITS FROM SEXUAL EXPLOITATION

Mainstream Corporations and popular brands drive culture. They influence the ways we communicate, dictate the information we receive and how we receive it, and play a significant role in shaping our value systems.

Unfortunately, many well-established, mainstream corporations are perpetuating and enabling sexual abuse and exploitation. NCOSE holds corporations accountable, pressing on them to change problematic practices and to make preventing sexual abuse and exploitation part of their business model. By doing so, we can transform them from enablers of exploitation into engaged allies in advancing a culture of dignity and safety.

ACTION: Ask Microsoft’s GitHub to Stop Creating Sexually Exploitative Technology!

Microsoft’s Github is arguably the most prolific space for Artificial Intelligence. Unfortunately, it is also a significant contributor to the creation of sexually exploitative technology. GitHub is being used to generate synthetic child sexual abuse material and image-based sexual abuse. Learn more and take action here.

ACTION: Sign the Petition to Support the Child Sex Trafficking Survivor Suing Twitter!

“Twitter was asked to take [child sexual abuse material] down and Twitter said ‘we’ve looked at it and we’re not taking it down.’” – Judge at the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit

The NCOSE Law Center is suing Twitter on behalf of a child sex trafficking survivor who was exploited on the platform, with the company’s full knowledge. This case seeks not only to hold Twitter accountable, but to create better legal precedents, as a form of mass-scale prevention that will have a ripple effect across all online platforms. Learn more and take action here.

ACTION: Sign the Petition for the Pornography Industry to Verify Age & Consent!

Online child and adult sex trafficking thrives because the pornography industry has no meaningful measures for verifying the age and consent of individuals featured in their content. Sign the petition calling for this to change!

ACTION: Call on the U.S. Attorney General to Investigate OnlyFans!

OnlyFans promotes itself as being empowering to pornography performers, but in reality it empowers sex traffickers, child exploiters, and “revenge porn” posters. Learn more and take action here.

We are so glad that your heart has been stirred to care about the problem of sex trafficking. With the above strategies, we can truly end this tragedy! Thank you for taking meaningful action and joining the movement for change.