GLENN: Hello, America. Welcome to the program.
It's funny, as we were talking about underage sex, sex with minors, and you heard Bill Maher from the past, maybe ten years, they're kind of joking about it. And as long as it's happening with a boy, it's okay. As long as it's an older woman and a boy, it's okay. If it's a boy and an older man, it's not okay. I mean, we're seeing this with Milo. He talked about sometimes it's okay if the man is giving him a loving experience. And, you know, basically grooming him. It's okay.
Or -- and everybody was against that. Bill Maher was talking about that -- that case up in Seattle, where it was a, what, 34-year-old woman who was grooming a 14-year-old boy. And everybody is laughing. How do you rape a boy?
Well, it happens a great deal. Tim Ballard is in. Tim runs Operation Underground Railroad. Ourrescue.org. And it's an organization that this audience helped found and start. Raised the first million dollars to help get it off the ground. Tim is an old friend of the show. Was with the CIA and Department of Homeland Security for a while doing -- you know, busting up sex crimes. And just couldn't take it anymore because there's a lot of things that the government just can't do because of the role of government.
Started with us going out and trying to save kids. We have an update for you on Haiti. There was a big bust -- this is the Super Bowl bust?
TIM: That's right, yeah.
GLENN: While everybody else was celebrating the Super Bowl, Tim and his team were out having another Super Bowl party, if you will, in Haiti, that turned out to be a big bust. Biggest bust yet?
TIM: One of our biggest.
GLENN: One of them -- okay. Tell us about it.
TIM: Well, we -- as you know, because you were with us a couple months ago -- we've been setting things up in Haiti for quite some time. Actually, one of our first operations was a bust in Haiti. They were selling kids out of this illicit orphanage.
But Haiti is such a broken land. There's 300,000 slave kids. And we -- again, you know, Glenn, because you were with us, and you saw this firsthand.
And we've been working for some time with the police. In Haiti, to do something about this -- I mean, these poor kids are taken. They're slave labor. Sex trafficked.
GLENN: This literally -- every -- I can't say every. But if you buy an avocado from the Dominican Republic, which most of us have, a lot of those have been picked by literal slaves. Not like kind of slaves. I'm working for slave labor. This is slave labor wages.
No, no, no. Actual chained slaves is what we're talking about.
TIM: Yeah, it is -- it's the most incredible thing we've ever seen.
About two, three months ago, the Haitian police told us they had information that children were being sold for sex, in the Port-au-Prince area, a couple of nightclubs where this was happening. And asked us if we could go in, using our top undercover team, to play the role of the Americans because that's who the trappers will then come to.
They sent us in, and then within a couple of days -- in fact, while you're there, and, you know, this, that's when that team was working parallel to what we were doing on the rehab side.
GLENN: Yeah.
TIM: And they found about three different -- three different networks that were selling children as young as ten years old. And they -- they brought these kids after a series of negotiations, always working with the police, right? We work with the police. And they believed that they were coming down, a bunch of Americans for a Super Bowl party at a little resort on the eastern part -- or the western part of the island.
And they ended upbringing 29 victims, 20 of which were actual children. And then traffickers brought these kids. And they walked on to this scene. And we have some photos of this, or some videos. But they walked onto this scene that looked like this beautiful, you know, American bachelor party, Super Bowl party. And they walked these poor -- these kids in. My operators reported that some of them were branded with -- you know, as property with tattoos. At least two of them we know for sure had been the subjects of child pornography that had been produced and distributed internationally.
GLENN: Yeah, one of them was really quite a star of child pornography.
TIM: Right. One of them -- yes, they had been making videos since she was nine, ten years old.
GLENN: Oh, my gosh.
So you saved the 29?
TIM: Yeah. Yes.
GLENN: The bad guys went to jail?
TIM: All of them.
GLENN: All of them went to jail.
TIM: Yep.
GLENN: And the kids -- and we don't want to get into the details of this because it's -- it's amazing when Pat and I went over before Christmas, and we saw these kids. I mean, I don't think people would -- I don't think people understand. We went into these places, these orphanages where these kids are being brought in.
And literally, they would not leave us alone. They would not -- I have never seen kids -- little kids just come to your feet and look and put their arms up, like please hold me. And then they would cuddle next to you. I mean, they would put your cheek next to your cheek. And they would not let you go.
PAT: Just starved for affection.
GLENN: Starved for affection.
PAT: Uh-huh.
GLENN: Which is odd. Now, not all of these kids that we saw are in sex crimes. But they're all orphans. And some of them are the lucky ones that went to the orphanage that wasn't selling them for slaves because, as we also found out, in Haiti, our own churches are -- are doing some things that are causing damage to Haiti.
We all go over there. We all want to do the right thing. But between the corruption of the government and us being do-good Americans, sometimes we don't know. And some of these churches -- hopefully not very many, but some of these churches are actually -- some of them knowingly engaged in the slave trade.
TIM: Yeah, it's crazy. It's just culturally accepted -- it's really no different than the church's involvement in 19th century America, where it's culturally accepted. There's 300,000 children. They call them restaveks. And they're kids who are -- it's domestic servitude. But it's slavery. The kids get sent to rural areas. Or, you know, they say, we can't afford them here, so we send them to our family or to our communities outside of the city. But we go in, undercover, we know what's happening. These kids are being treated as slaves. Sex slaves. Slave labor.
And we even came -- a couple of pastors who had two or three of them. And they were -- I mean, they were slaves.
PAT: Oh, my gosh.
GLENN: Like sleep on the floor, can't eat with the family, Cinderella stories.
TIM: Yes.
GLENN: True Cinderella stories. And the churches don't -- and the churches there -- not all of them, by any stretch of the imagination, but some of the churches there, it is so normalized there, that they don't think that they're doing anything wrong. And the kid -- and the parents will bring their kids to the pastors. And the pastors will say, "Oh, I'll take care of it," and ship them off to be sold into slavery. It's crazy.
PAT: What percentage of the kids that are in sex slavery do you know, Tim, have been sold by their parents? As opposed to kidnapped.
TIM: Yeah. Anecdotally, I can say it's -- either sold by their parents or lured out where the parents didn't really -- they were duped, I'd say probably 90 percent.
PAT: 90 percent!
GLENN: Wow.
TIM: Very few are like a hard kidnapping like in the movie Taken.
PAT: Oh, my gosh. Yeah.
Wow.
STU: The documentary.
GLENN: Tell the story about the dad who was told his children were great for -- what was it? You know, the Star of Brazil Show. You know what I'm talking about. It was in the Dominican -- I can't remember where it was, where the talent scout came to town.
TIM: Yes, yes. Unbelievable.
GLENN: Yeah. Can you tell that story?
TIM: What happened was -- this was in Cartagena in Colombia. And there was just this woman who 25 years old, beautiful. She was Ms. Cartagena 2012, I believe. So she was known in the community --
GLENN: This is like Miss America. Okay. Think of this.
TIM: And the traffickers had recruited her, and she knew exactly what she was doing. To go in -- and she would walk into these homes of kids. And they targeted them about nine years old. And they would go and sit down with the families and say, "You know who I am. I can make your daughter famous and rich like me. And I'm going to give her a scholarship to my modeling school." And it was a real modeling school. They had pamphlets. They had commercials. They were showing them on their laptops. And the families thought, "Oh, my gosh. My ship came in. And go -- go to the school."
And they take these kids, and they put them in the school. After they go to school, they go to their three or four hours in this modeling school. And slowly, they're desensitized. They're shown pornography. They're shown child pornography. They're given drugs. And they're told eventually, part of this job is you're going to go into that room, and there's going to be a person in there. And likely a Westerner. And you're going to do whatever sexual acts he wants you to do. That's part of being a model. And, by the way, if you tell anybody about this, you will be dead, your family will be dead. And these kids -- some of them go home every night, and they don't say anything. And that's where we were able to sweep in, and we were able to infiltrate that group.
And on that operation, we rescued over 100 kids.
JEFFY: Wow.
GLENN: This is really, really important work. Tim is going to be with me tonight on television at 5 o'clock. We're going to show some of this video of this bust. So you'll see some of the kids. And the most important thing is that these kids are all taken and they're safe. They don't leave the arms of Operation Underground Railroad really until they're 18. And they're safe and on their feet. They get an education. They are fed. They are given spiritual education. Spiritual healing.
And it's an unbelievable service. Really unbelievable. And it is all thanks to you.
We have a goal in the next year that we want to raise an awful lot of money. And we'll tell you why coming. But we sure would like your help. If you would be willing to help us on these -- I mean, really, you want your name written in the Book of Life, you want to know why you're here, how can I make a difference, did I ever make a difference? This one makes a difference.
How much to save a child?
TIM: Right now, we're running about 2500 to 3,000 for a kid who is outside of the United States.
GLENN: Okay. And we'll get to the United States. We'll probably talk about that a little bit tomorrow and next week. But if you would like to help in any way you can, go to ourrescue.org. That's ourrescue.org. Tim, I'll see you this afternoon.
TIM: Thanks, Glenn. Thanks.
GLENN: Thank you very much.
[break]
GLENN: Just a couple more minutes from Operation Underground Railroad, ourrescue.org.
I'm actually getting on a plane as we leave tomorrow to go to Bangkok. And, you know, this is -- this is the -- this is the seat of Sodom and Gomorrah, if you will. Is this ground zero for sex trafficking?
TIM: Definitely one of them. Maybe -- yeah.
GLENN: And he's going to take me through the gates of hell. And, you know, Vice already exists. I'm going to bring our cameras with us. I'm looking for virtue. In the worst possible scenarios, where can we find the virtue?
And we already have an idea -- a couple of ideas of where we can find it. But as the operators go in and rescue some children, they're going to be doing some things. We're going to be finding the virtue. But I -- the gates of hell -- you know, I've watched a few documentaries on it, and I don't know if I'm ready to see it myself. Pretty --
TIM: I've been doing this for 15 years, and I want to go home and vomit every time I walk down the street that I'm going to take you down in a couple days.
STU: I'm sorry we are missing this trip. I'm telling you, wow, I am really sorry we're missing this one. Because that's really difficult, man.
GLENN: We're going to spend more time in the airplane than we are on the ground, which is unfortunate. But it's going to be a whirlwind trip and hope to be able to come home and show you some stories of how you are making an impact. And this one involves us, except a different -- this is not rescuing the children alone. Because I get a lot of people -- why are we spending money elsewhere? Well, because children are children. I don't think the Lord sees borders.
STU: It also goes a lot further too. Right?
GLENN: But if it's happening here in America, we have to take care of it as well. But this particular case, we are. Because the bad guys, a lot of them come from the United States. We're going to a shelter -- I don't want to say anything about it. But we're going to one place where, you know, Operation Underground Railroad has teamed up with this Buddhist monk who actually goes and rescues these 7-year-old boys from the clutches of American men who have come over for a sex holiday. And we have to police our own. Get them out of the picture as well.
We'll have more on this tonight. Some more good news on this tonight. And so much more, coming up on the program. Next, Tim Ballard. Ourrescue.org.
