Counterpoint: When did the politics on child sex trafficking become more important than protecting kids?

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Human trafficking and child exploitation is happening here in Minnesota and everywhere, generating $173 billion annually in illegal profits worldwide. Child sex trafficking is reported in all 50 states. Unfortunately, nonprofits often focus on fighting over funding instead of fighting together to save people’s lives. Not Minnesota nice.

Our Rescue opens its new global headquarters downtown Minneapolis this week (“Embattled group will relocate to Mpls.,” Feb. 6, and “Mpls. pulls back on ties with Our Rescue,” Feb. 8). Before relocating, we offered $100,000 in matching grants to local partners and were finalizing a memorandum of understanding with the city of Minneapolis to provide $1 million in training and services at the South Minneapolis Community Safety Center. To be clear, the city was not going to pay us — Our Rescue was offering our funds for digital forensics training and equipment for police, online safety training for caregivers and services for survivors.

In response, some local groups and one Minneapolis elected official chose to drag us through the mud, citing accusations against the prior organization, Operation Underground Railroad (OUR) and its departed founder. The attacks cited old perceptions, not our work after we legally reincorporated as Our Rescue in April 2024. When did politics become more important than protecting kids?

We won’t be a party to these attacks and have withdrawn our request for proposal (RFP). This is a distraction from the essential work we and our partners are doing to find and support survivors.

I have committed to Mayor Jacob Frey and Minneapolis police that we remain steadfast in our commitment to help. We already have granted $50,000 to the Minnesota Indian Women’s Resource Center and $10,000 to Terebinth Refuge in St. Cloud to support their survivor care efforts.

I’ve lived in the Twin Cities most of my adult life and have built my career helping restructure and rebuild businesses. I have been in this fight to raise awareness and dedicate resources as an executive at Northwest and Delta Air Lines. In 2017, while working for Carlson, I accepted the Presidential Award for Extraordinary Efforts to Combat Trafficking in Persons from the White House for Marilyn Carlson Nelson’s pioneering leadership. Marilyn had the courage and conviction to lead and enlist other hoteliers and business leaders — knowing this mission is bigger than any single person and any single organization.

The truth about the new Our Rescue

Last February, I took on the fight of my lifetime: rescuing OUR from its reputational crisis caused by allegations against its founder Tim Ballard. Before my arrival, the movie “Sound of Freedom” brought worldwide attention to the horrors of child sex trafficking as well as criticism. While this was presented as a dramatization of Ballard’s rescue operations that took place before my time, OUR did not receive any money from the movie.

Serving this mission is more important than one man or one movie. When I was hired, I committed to rebuilding our work with full transparency and began reaching out to partners in the movement.

I’m proud to say that in less than a year on the job, we have transformed.

Simultaneously, we continued work in 27 countries with renewed focus in the United States. Domestically, in 2024, Our Rescue funded 16 human trafficking trainings for 1,560 law enforcement officers, donated 24 ESD K-9s to police and provided 131 grants for digital forensics. Yet still, we are under attack. How long is the arc of redemption?

Give us a chance, Minneapolis. Police, parents and survivors need us all.