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The Exodus Road (TER) is a non-governmental 501(c)(3) organization that works to combat human trafficking through prevention, intervention, and aftercare programs. [1]
| | This article needs additional citations for verification .(August 2016) |
The Exodus Road (TER) is a non-governmental 501(c)(3) organization that works to combat human trafficking through prevention, intervention, and aftercare programs. [1]
In 2010, co-founders Matt and Laura Parker moved their family from Colorado to Thailand to direct a children's home, where they were exposed to the issue of human trafficking and began networking with counter-trafficking NGOs and local law enforcement involved in intervention work. After building a relationship with authorities, Matt offered to collect information for the local police, posing as a customer in a brothel, in hopes to assemble enough information to justify police-led raids. [2] Following the success of these undercover operations, the Parkers founded The Exodus Road as a registered nonprofit organization in 2012.
The Exodus Road is governed by an International Advisory Board composed of leaders in the anti-human trafficking field from the United States, Southeast Asia, and Latin America. [3] In each country, there is also a board of directors.
As of November 2021, members of the organization's United States Board of Directors include:
For the first nine years following the organization's inception, Matt Parker served as chief executive officer and Laura Parker acted as the chief communications officer and president. In October 2021, The Exodus Road announced in a press release that Matt opted to step down from CEO to spend his energy on the front-line work, instead working as the chief strategy consultant for the nonprofit's Global Program Department. Their Board of Directors unanimously voted to appoint Laura in his place. [10]
While Matt and Laura Parker are strongly motivated by their Christian faith and some of their partners are faith-based, TER’s 501(c)(3) registration status is without religious affiliation.
According to their website, 65% of their staff are foreign nationals, including social workers, support staff, and investigators. [3]
The Exodus Road is currently headquartered in Colorado Springs, Colorado and supports active operatives in Thailand, India, Latin America, The Philippines, and in the United States. As of May 2023, the organization's website states that they have helped free 2,045 people, aided in the arrest of 1,143 traffickers and perpetrators, helped 1,670 people with aftercare, and trained 2,844 people. [11] The organization explained how they arrive at these numbers in an article published on their website. [12]
TraffickWatch Academy is an initiative of The Exodus Road that features a digital training platform designed to equip law enforcement, leaders, and citizens in the fight against human trafficking. [13] In September 2021, The Exodus Road launched TraffickWatch Academy: United States for free, with the goal of educating users on the components of labor trafficking and sex trafficking in the United States. [14] The multimedia modules share survivor stories based on case files from the nonprofit’s operations and provides practical steps for viewers to personally combat trafficking in their communities.
In partnership with the government of Amazonas, TER developed a specialized, in-depth version of TraffickWatch Academy to provide thousands of civil police with counter-trafficking training in Brazil. [15]
The Exodus Road's intervention programs have been in operation since 2012 and focus on training local investigators to pose as clients in brothels. These undercover operatives identify victims and build case files that are then delivered to law enforcement. With this information, TER plans raids in partnership with local law enforcement to arrest the alleged traffickers. [16]
The Exodus Road primarily supports local law enforcement in evidence gathering for cases of human trafficking. Working with teams of nationals, the organization deploys trained and highly vetted volunteers known as DELTA Team to help with identifying current victims, gathering intelligence, building evidence packages for police, and supporting operations. [17]
David Zach, lead vocalist and guitarist of the Christian rock band Remedy Drive, has been on several deployments with the organization's DELTA Team. [18]
Renée Brinkerhoff, race car driver and founder of 501(c) organization Valkyrie Gives, has also participated in undercover operations with The Exodus Road. [19]
The Exodus Road also has a DELTA Silver team, a cyber investigations team made up of volunteer cyber analytics experts. They gather evidence of suspected trafficking to deliver to law enforcement. [20]
Beyond Rescue, the organization's aftercare program, serves survivors utilizing a trauma-informed approach. In collaboration with TER's NGO partners, they tailor services for those in greatest need in their areas of operation. [21]
As part of Beyond Rescue, The Exodus Road opened Freedom Home, a safe house and mentorship program that opened in Fall 2021 and in Thailand. Specifically, this safe house functions as immediate shelter for adult female survivors of sex trafficking and sexual exploitation and any of their dependents. Freedom Home provides trauma-informed therapy, life skills classes, counseling, medical care, community internships, and job skills training. [22]
The Exodus Road received a $60,000 grant to support their Freedom Home project in Thailand from the UN Voluntary Trust Fund for Victims of Human Trafficking (UNVTF), managed by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC). UNODC announced that The Exodus Road's Beyond Rescue project was selected for their fifth call for proposals under sub-grant program two of its small grants program. In total, 10 NGO projects that provide emergency aid to human trafficking survivors were selected for award, totaling approximately USD 0.6 million in grants. [23]
Cellebrite is a significant partner of The Exodus Road, having provided training and strategic resources for their investigative teams. The organization has used Cellebrite UFED devices to legally collect information on open cases. Cellebrite Training also donated training seats for their CCO and CCPA training classes, which TER will use this to train law enforcement partners in digital forensics investigation methods and techniques. [24]
Federal Police in Brazil collaborated with The Exodus Road to launch an anti-human trafficking campaign in December 2022. The goal of the campaign was to educate and inform the public about what human trafficking looks like and how they can assist police in finding survivors and stopping traffickers. [25]
The Exodus Road provides the results of financial audits and Form 990 annually to uphold financial integrity, receiving two third-party endorsements in transparency, including a Guidestar Platinum Seal of Transparency. [26] Their Charity Navigator Encompass Rating includes a 100 out of 100 Finance and Accountability score. [27]
In addition, TER has corporate sponsorships with businesses such as Accelerated Wealth, N2Gives, MDRT Foundation, 5DayDeal, 24HourRace, Curtis Carlson Family Foundation, and Child Aid International. They are also one of the official partners at End It Movement. [28]
In 2017, The Exodus Road received a complaint of a hostile work environment, after an incident of a sexualized nature at a work event. [29] The Exodus Road engaged an outside law firm, Lewis Roca Rothgerber Christie, which conducted investigations. The investigations did reveal inappropriate behavior, including drunkenness and nudity at work-related events, [30] and the organization implemented the recommendations from the law firm, which included termination of certain individuals other disciplinary actions. [31] The summative statement from the investigation has been published publicly by the legal firm. [32]
The Exodus Road has also been criticized for being religiously influenced to use trafficking as a pretext to intervene against sex workers and remove their sources of income. [33] The organization has on several occasions clarified the difference between fighting human trafficking and sex work, stating that they are looking for those who are in sex work due to “force, abduction, fraud, or coercion,” or those who are underage (which legally qualifies them as human trafficking victims). [34] Specifically, TER functions under the United Nations' definition of human trafficking: "recruitment, transportation, transfer, harboring or receipt of people through force, fraud or deception, with the aim of exploiting them for profit." [35]
The organization has also been criticized for their use of military jargon, such as describing volunteers as "covert operatives" to carry out their mission. [36]
Critics of organizations like The Exodus Road allege that such organizations have invited television crews and supporters to watch and film its raids of brothels for the "shock value" and to raise funds. [37] However, according to the organization's brand guidelines on their website, they state that they do not use raid imagery of survivors in their content. [38]
Laura Parker wrote the book, The Exodus Road: One Wife's Journey Into Sex Trafficking and Rescue, published in 2014. [39]
Sex trafficking is human trafficking for the purpose of sexual exploitation. It has been called a form of modern slavery because of the way victims are forced into sexual acts non-consensually, in a form of sexual slavery. Perpetrators of the crime are called sex traffickers or pimps—people who manipulate victims to engage in various forms of commercial sex with paying customers. Sex traffickers use force, fraud, and coercion as they recruit, transport, and provide their victims as prostitutes. Sometimes victims are brought into a situation of dependency on their trafficker(s), financially or emotionally. Every aspect of sex trafficking is considered a crime, from acquisition to transportation and exploitation of victims. This includes any sexual exploitation of adults or minors, including child sex tourism (CST) and domestic minor sex trafficking (DMST).
In 2008 Vietnam was primarily a source country for women and children trafficked for commercial sexual exploitation and forced labor. Women and children were trafficked to the People’s Republic of China (P.R.C), Cambodia, Thailand, the Republic of Korea, Malaysia, Taiwan, and Macau for sexual exploitation. Vietnamese women were trafficked to the P.R.C., Taiwan, and the Republic of Korea via fraudulent or misrepresented marriages for commercial exploitation or forced labor. Vietnam was also a source country for men and women who migrate willingly and legally for work in the construction, fishing, or manufacturing sectors in Malaysia, Taiwan, P.R.C., Thailand, and the Middle East but subsequently face conditions of forced labor or debt bondage. Vietnam was a destination country for Cambodian children trafficked to urban centers for forced labor or commercial sexual exploitation. The country had an internal trafficking problem with women and children from rural areas trafficked to urban centers for commercial sexual exploitation and forced labor. Vietnam was increasingly a destination for child sex tourism, with perpetrators from Japan, the Republic of Korea, the P.R.C., Taiwan, the UK, Australia, Europe, and the U.S. In 2007, an Australian non-governmental organization (NGO) uncovered 80 cases of commercial sexual exploitation of children by foreign tourists in the Sa Pa tourist area of Vietnam alone.
Laura J. Lederer is a pioneer in the work to stop human trafficking. She is a legal scholar and former Senior Advisor on Trafficking in Persons in the Office for Democracy and Global Affairs of the United States Department of State. She has also been an activist against human trafficking, prostitution, pornography, and hate speech. Lederer is founder of The Protection Project, a legal research institute at Johns Hopkins University devoted to combating trafficking in persons.
Honduras is principally a source and transit country for women, girls, and boys trafficked for the purpose of commercial sexual exploitation. Honduran children are typically trafficked from rural areas to urban and tourist centers such as San Pedro Sula, the North Caribbean coast, and the Bay Islands. Honduran women and children are trafficked to Guatemala, El Salvador, Mexico, and the United States for sexual exploitation. Most foreign victims of commercial sexual exploitation in Honduras are from neighboring countries; some are economic migrants en route to the United States who are victimized by traffickers. Internal child labor and forced child labor for violent criminal gangs are serious concerns.
In the United States, human trafficking tends to occur around international travel hubs with large immigrant populations, notably in California, Texas, and Georgia. Those trafficked include young children, teenagers, men, and women; victims can be domestic citizens or foreign nationals.
The U.S. State Department's Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons placed Poland in Tier 1 in 2024. Below is the full copy of a webpage section relating to Poland in a report published by the Bureau of Public Affairs of the United States Department of State, entitled "Country Narratives: Countries N Through Z: Trafficking in Persons Report 2024",which is in the public domain.
Poland is a source and destination country for men and women subjected to trafficking in persons, specifically conditions of forced labor and for women and children in forced prostitution. Men and women from Poland are subjected to conditions of forced labor in Italy and Sweden. Women and children from Poland are trafficked for forced prostitution within Poland and also in Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, Portugal and Sweden. Women and children from Moldova, Ukraine, Bulgaria, Romania, Belarus, and Russia are trafficked to Poland for forced prostitution. Men and women from Bangladesh, China, and the Philippines are found in conditions of forced labor in Poland. Men and women from Thailand, Nigeria, Iraq, Ukraine, Belarus, Romania, Bulgaria, Moldova, Mongolia, Vietnam, Turkey, Djibouti, and Uganda are found in conditions of forced labor, including forced begging and debt bondage, and also forced prostitution in Poland.
Human trafficking in Nepal is a growing criminal industry affecting multiple other countries beyond Nepal, primarily across Asia and the Middle East. Nepal is mainly a source country for men, women and children subjected to the forced labor and sex trafficking. U.S. State Department's Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons placed the country in "Tier 2" in 2017.
Nigeria is a source, transit, and destination country for women and children subjected to trafficking in persons including forced labour and forced prostitution. The U.S. State Department's Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons placed the country in "Tier 2 Watchlist" in 2017. Trafficked people, particularly women and children, are recruited from within and outside the country's borders – for involuntary domestic servitude, sexual exploitation, street hawking, domestic servitude, mining, begging etc. Some are taken from Nigeria to other West and Central African countries, primarily Gabon, Cameroon, Ghana, Chad, Benin, Togo, Niger, Burkina Faso, and the Gambia, for the same purposes. Children from other West African states like Benin, Togo, and Ghana – where Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) rules allow for easy entry – are also forced to work in Nigeria, and some are subjected to hazardous jobs in Nigeria's granite mines. Europe, especially Italy and Russia, the Middle East and North Africa, are prime destinations for forced prostitution. Nigerians accounted for 21% of the 181,000 migrants that arrived in Italy through the Mediterranean in 2016 and about 21,000 Nigerian women and girls have been trafficked to Italy since 2015.
Burundi is a source country for children and possibly women subjected to trafficking in persons, specifically conditions of involuntary domestic servitude and forced prostitution. Children and young adults may also be coerced into forced labor on plantations or small farms in southern Burundi, or to conduct informal commerce in the streets. Child labor is very common in agricultural fields where major exports, like tea and coffee, are harvested. Forced labour of children and adults is also very common in mines due to a large market for valuable stones and ores. Many trafficking victims can be found in mines in the northern area of Burundi, especially around Cibitoke. Some traffickers may be family or acquaintances of victims who, under the pretext of assisting underprivileged children with education or with false promises of lucrative jobs, subject them to forced labor, most commonly as domestic servants. While there is little evidence of large-scale child prostitution, “benevolent” older females offer vulnerable younger girls room and board within their homes, and in some cases eventually push them into prostitution to pay for living expenses; extended family members also financially profit from the commercial sexual exploitation of young relatives residing with them. It is most common for the trafficking of victims to remain internal within the country or to extend only to the surrounding countries. Male tourists from Oman and the United Arab Emirates exploit Burundian girls in prostitution. Businessmen recruit Burundian girls for commercial sexual exploitation in Rwanda, Kenya, and Uganda, and recruit boys and girls for exploitation in various types of forced labor in Tanzania. Unlike in past years, there were no reports of forced or voluntary recruitment of children into government armed forces or rebel groups during the reporting period. If the trafficking of Burundians does extend externally, it is most common for them to be sent to locations in the Middle East and Western Europe.
Costa Rica is a source, transit, and destination country for goods and products, a great location for trade in the seas. Costa Rica is surrounded by the Pacific Ocean and the Caribbean Sea making it a source of imports and exports. Costa Rica is approximately 19,653 square miles of land, making it smaller than West Virginia. To a lesser but increasing extent, Costa Rica is a source, transit, and destination country for men, women, and children subjected to conditions of forced labor, particularly in the agriculture, construction, fishing, and domestic service sectors. The economy greatly depends on the exportation of bananas and coffee, making high demands of agriculture work. Costa Rican women and children are forced into commercial sexual exploitation due to high rates of poverty and violence. Women and girls from Nicaragua, the Dominican Republic, Guatemala, Colombia, and Panama have been identified in as victims of forced prostitution. Child sex tourism is a serious problem, particularly in the provinces of Guanacaste, Limón, Puntarenas, and San José. Child sex tourists arrive mostly from the United States and Europe. Young men from Nicaragua, Vietnam, China and other Asian countries are subjected to conditions of forced labor in Costa Rica. Adults have been identified using trafficked women and children to transport and sell drugs. Neighboring countries and cities are victims as well to forced labor many times trafficked to Costa Rica.
Human trafficking in California is the illegal trade of human beings for the purposes of reproductive slavery, commercial sexual exploitation, and forced labor as it occurs in the state of California. Human trafficking, widely recognized as a modern-day form of slavery, includes
"the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harboring or receipt of persons by means of threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power, or of a position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation. Exploitation shall include, at a minimum, the exploitation of prostitution of others or other forms of sexual exploitation, forced labor services, slavery or practices similar to slavery, servitude or the removal of organs."
Agape International Missions (AIM) is a nonprofit, non-denominational, non-governmental organization working to rescue, heal and empower survivors of sex trafficking in Cambodia. It has staff in California and Southeast Asia and carries out housing, education, health, employment, rehabilitation, and community care initiatives in Cambodia. The AIM Apparel is a retail site that sells jewelry and other products made by survivors and supports the organization's initiatives. AIM received GuideStar USA, Inc.'s gold seal of transparency in 2019. Charity Navigator gave AIM the highest rating of 4 out of 4 stars and a score of 100 out of 100 for accountability & transparency.
Truckers Against Trafficking (TAT) is a nonprofit organization that trains truck drivers to recognize and report instances of human trafficking. This national organization formed in Oklahoma, United States, in 2009 and teaches truck drivers about the results of human trafficking. TAT is based in Colorado and its executive director is Kendis Paris.
Global Centurion is a non-profit organization that works to combat modern slavery by focusing on demand. To date, efforts to combat human trafficking have focused on rescue and restoration of victims, and prosecution of traffickers. Few efforts focus on the buyers – those that fuel the market for human trafficking – whether its sex, labor or organ trafficking. Global Centurion believes that in order to combat human trafficking, a comprehensive approach is required, one that recognizes the "slavery triangle:" the supply (victims), demand ("buyers"), and distribution (traffickers). Global Centurion addresses the demand side in three ways: 1) Research on demand reduction and related issues; 2) training and awareness programs targeting demand; and 3) partnerships and collaboration. A key project is the creation of an international modern slavery case law database, with over 6,000 cases from around the world.
Operation Underground Railroad (O.U.R.) is a nonprofit United States-based anti-sex trafficking organization founded in 2013 by Tim Ballard. The organization has been criticized for its conduct during sting operations and has been accused of exaggerating claims regarding its work. There have not been many verified rescues performed by the group, and the group's claims of rescues have misled donors and the public about what the group does. The group claims to have conducted multiple sting operations, some outside the United States, and donated technological and monetary resources to law-enforcement agencies that combat sex trafficking.
Sex trafficking in China is human trafficking for the purpose of sexual exploitation and slavery that occurs in the People's Republic of China. It is a country of origin, destination, and transit for sexually trafficked persons.
Cybersex trafficking, live streaming sexual abuse, webcam sex tourism/abuse or ICTs -facilitated sexual exploitation is a cybercrime involving sex trafficking and the live streaming of coerced sexual acts and/or rape on webcam.
DeliverFund is a non-governmental 501(c)(3) organization focused on targeting human traffickers in the United States using counterterrorism methodology and technology. It was founded in 2014 by Nic McKinley, a former CIA agent and a United States Air Force Pararescueman, and Jeremy Mahugh, a former member of the US Special Operations and a Navy SEAL sniper.
The prevalence of Human trafficking in Houston, Texas is the worst of any U.S. city. Between 2007 and 2016 the city ranked first for reported trafficking cases, while in 2019 the number of cases nearly doubled compared to the previous three years, despite Mayoral initiatives, due to the highly organized nature of this criminal business.