Dr. John A. King survived childhood sexual abuse and founded Give Them a Voice Foundation after discovering male trafficking victims get only 18% of hotline calls and are often dismissed by support services. He's working to change that through his foundation, a documentary, and his book Deal With It.
This sex trafficking survivor wants to give other male victims a voice.
My father put bread and water in my mother's vagina, and I was given a choice that either my sister removed it with her tongue or I did. And I did.
John King said that happened to him when he was 4 years old. The Polaris Project estimates that about 4.5 million people are trapped in forced sexual exploitation around the world.
Out of a period of time from 4 to 16, apparently I was a good-looking kid, And I'd be taken to parties, and I was trained at oral sex.
Sex trafficking is defined by the Justice Department as a commercial sex act induced by force or in which the person induced to perform such act is a minor. Last year, the Human Trafficking Hotline reported that about 82% of sex trafficking calls came from women. The other 18% were from men. King says that while there are a lot of resources for women, more needs to be done for those 18% of victims who are male.
I remember trying to approach 12-step programs and groups and ask for help, and their response was, well, men don't get raped. You know, I was told very clearly at one stage that, you know, all I was doing was trying to be a predator to these women.
So he started the Give Them a Voice Foundation, a nonprofit that connects male victims of sex trafficking to resources. The foundation has also partnered with Stopping Traffic, a documentary coming out this year that focuses on the growing human trafficking industry in the U.S. and Latin America.
And I realized that what, what I needed was someone to stand up for boys and men like I was and, and just maybe just champion their cause. I wanted to try and give a voice to boys and men like I were, people that had no one to While he says his trafficking ended when he was 16, John says it still affects him to this day. It didn't end when the sexual abuse ended. It went on into business relationships, church relationships, constantly inviting abusive relationships in.
He's hoping documentaries like Stopping Traffick, foundations like Give Them a Voice, and his book Deal With It help young men escape the sex trafficking cycle.
And unless there's a place of intervention, a safe place to talk and negate these things and negotiate going forward, then brokenness will be perpetuated.
