EUR This N That | Urban Black News Blog

Tanisha, of Mozambique, was sold into sex slavery at 15 years old.

More and more people are getting involved in stopping the horror of sex trafficking and/or human trafficking throughout the world.  But a lot of us are still unaware of how much of a pandemic reality it is becoming.

An organization called Free The Girls started by Denver, Colorado housewife Kemba Langas and Dave Tepstra, a pastor who moved his family to Mozambique,  began in an effort to rehabilitate women who had been sold into sex slavery there.  Tepstra learned that their used clothing industry does well, but bras were “a luxury item that enables them to earn about three times the minimum wage,” according to CNN.

One woman benefiting from the program is Tashina, who was sold into sex slavery when she was 15 years old. But through the Free The Girls program she is able to sell bras to help her rebuild her life with money she needs to raise her daughter.  She tells the story of how her daughter witnessed her having to perform for a man and thinking that she had to change her life and let her daughter know that what she saw was wrong.

Free The Girls gives these women the opportunity to rescue themselves from this life by making enough money to sustain themselves.  Langas and Tepstra collects bras in the U.S. and ships them with the help of Rick Youngquist, a member of Truckers Against Trafficking, who found out about the project and offered to drive the bras in his truck from Denver to Chicago.

Truckers Against Trafficking is an “organization that educates long-haul truck drivers about how to spot signs of human trafficking on the road.”  He drives the bras to another man who was moved by the story, Paul Jarzombek, director of operations at LR International. He agreed to ship the bras for them, otherwise it would cost them in excess of $6,000 to ship them all.

Read more here and check out the report below.

-J.C. Brooks

Meet Tashina: