By Kevin Austin
“We need 10 coffins.”
I was momentarily stunned by the answer. I was visiting an anti-trafficking organization in northern Thailand and had asked what the needs of the organization were.
“Why do you need 10 coffins?” I asked.
“Because the men go to work in places like Taiwan and come home with HIV/AIDS and then infect their wives. There are no medicines. They die and need to be buried, so a child is sold to buy a coffin. They need to bury the dead.”
I hung my head.
He continued, “So, if we have coffins to give, we can save children.”
I was speechless.
This visit was in 2010, and it’s a true story. The number of people living in modern-day slavery at the time was estimated to be 27 million. Now, in 2025, the number is 50 million. Each of these numbers represents a human being created in the image of God: someone’s brother, sister, uncle, mother, cousin. Since this time, I’ve been in more than 25 countries examining the issues that lead to human trafficking, the orbiting issues, the root causes and the symptoms. There is great variety. Human trafficking is like a fishing net; you can find almost every issue caught in the web. For example:
Anselo
Rivas-Vaciamadrid is a prosperous city in Spain. Schools are bustling with youthful potential. The parks are well-kept. The streets are clean. However, just on the edges, next to the A3 freeway is a squatters village made up of a patchwork of homes — some legally built, most not. Periodically, the Spanish government sends men with bulldozers into the neighborhood to demolish homes.
Anselo lives in this community. He’s a young man with great potential. He’s smart, though he never finished secondary school, having to drop out to help his family with their water hauling business. He used to live in Bulgaria in a Roma village outside the city of Dupnica. Tired of the lack of opportunities, he used what little money he had to buy his way into Europe in the hopes of finding work and a chance to do more than simply survive. Buying his way to Europe meant giving not only money, but also surrendering his passport to smugglers.
squatters village at Rivas-Vaciamadrid, Spain
Anselo now lives in a house outside Rivas-Vaciamadrid with four other men. They all have different stories, but the end result is now they are being used by a gang to steal cars, run drugs, and move women from brothel to brothel in Spain.[1]
What can he do? He has no passport. He cannot speak Spanish. He is an illegal. The gang using him has very bad men with deep ties to corrupt officials. He is trapped. He cannot walk away. He’s doing things he doesn’t want to do. The threat of violence is very real.
Julie
Julie is a sophomore in high school in Michigan. She meets John online, and though he is older, he is kind and says nice things about her. She meets him at the mall, and he buys her new shoes and clothes.
She wants to be loved so badly. She wants the kind of love she sees in the movies. She has this empty sadness inside and thinks John can bring her happiness.
Things get physical quickly. What she doesn’t know is that John videotapes their activities. He records everything.
Now John is threatening to show the video on social media, to her parents, her pastor, her teachers, and all of her friends. She has so much shame. He wants her to do things for her. If she doesn’t, he has the threat hanging over her head.
John is still kind to her. He takes care of her, buying her nice clothes. Weirdly, she feels good with him. She doesn’t like having sex with other men, but thinks she loves John.
The stories could go on and on.
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“Worldviews need changing. Supply chains need disrupting. Systems need replacing.”
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Setting People Free
The good news is that Jesus came to set captives free. Nothing can stop the mission of Jesus. He is still setting people free.
In 2010 I founded the Set Free Movement, an organization with a big mission: mobilize the church to end human trafficking. But where does human trafficking come from? The fictionalized stories of Anselo and Julie above show it’s not as simple as writing a check, or marching, or giving a little bit of attention to what’s going on.
The story of coffins is true. I really did have this conversation. The poverty led men to leave. The loneliness drove the men to sin against their wives. The lack of medicines, social structures, and poverty led to more hopelessness with children being sold to meet a real need.
There needs to be long, consistent, holistic action to create the change needed. Worldviews need changing. Supply chains need disrupting. Systems need replacing.
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“The Set Free Movement was founded on the mission of Jesus.”
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Hope and Healing
It’s ultimately about vulnerability, transformation, and hope. Protecting the vulnerable is not enough. We also must offer hope and healing. Holistic transformation of lives, communities, values, systems, and cultures is the end goal. This is the mission of the church.
What is salvation? It’s “salv-ation.” A salve is put on a wound for healing. Sin is a disease and from this disease every injustice sprouts. Jesus heals our sin and also brings hope to broken lives, communities in despair, systems of oppression, and cultures of fear. As followers of Jesus, we are participants in the healing power of God. We are being healed, and we offer others healing.
The Set Free Movement was founded on the mission of Jesus. We come alongside anyone, anywhere, to do whatever can be done to protect the vulnerable and to offer hope and healing in Jesus’ name. Set Free works with young and old, church leaders, business leaders, students, soccer moms, overworked social workers, women in strip clubs, youth on the streets, government officials, and more. We are keeping girls in schools, helping protect youth while they are online, repatriating missing children, and more.
Over the next few weeks, look for more stories in Light + Life Magazine. You’ll meet Gasira in Kenya and Jodie, a youth in the child welfare system, and more. I invite you to let your heart be troubled. But please don’t just be troubled! Act: pray, learn more, connect with Set Free, talk with your family and friends.
- You can learn more about the Set Free Movement and how we are ending human trafficking and creating new futures HERE.
- Learn more about human trafficking HERE and HERE.
- Write to me: HERE. I would love to interact.
[1] Spain has the third largest brothel system in the world after Thailand and Puerto Rico: https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2019/may/11/prostitution-tackling-spain-sex-traffickers
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Kevin Austin, D.Min., is the founder and director of the Set Free Movement. He is also a Free Methodist elder and the author of “Set Free: A Guide to Pursuing Liberation in an Age of Bondage.”
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