By Timothy Ballard

Not long ago I was holding a three year-old slave child in my arms, carrying him to freedom. I was working as an undercover operative with the Haitian government, posing as a child trafficker. In the weeks leading up to the rescue, my team and I had managed to infiltrate a criminal organization in Port Au Prince that sold children from their dark lair for $15,000 a piece. They originally set the price at $10,000, but like the Thenardiers selling Cossette, they kept demanding more.

Tim Ballard with child

I had just bought this child from the organization. Having worked for years as a Special Agent and Undercover Operative for the U.S. government, I knew very well that this child and his 27 companions were in a dire situation. They all lived in a trafficker’s dream—children for sale, ready to be moved and exploited throughout the world. I knew the trafficker’s dream was the children’s nightmare.

After our successful sting operation, all 28 kids were rescued and placed into safety; and two traffickers (including a U.S. citizen) were arrested. This is the face of modern-day slavery and it is every bit as outrageous as the slavery of Abraham Lincoln’s day in the 1800s.

Lincoln may not have started out to abolish slavery but he became a convert to the idea as he eventually grasped the magnitude of this egregious human rights violation. He was humbled and repentant and ready to take a stand.

Lincoln declared to the nation:

“It behooves us, then, to humble ourselves before the offended Power, to confess our national sins, and to pray for clemency and forgiveness…let us then rest humbly in the hope authorized by the Divine teaching, that the united cry of the nation will be heard on high, and answered with blessings no less than the pardon of our national sins, and the restoration of our now divided and suffering country….” (Lincoln, as quoted in Richardson ed., “A Proclamation by the President of the United States of America (March 30, 1863),” 164-165)

The Civil War ended in 1865 with a shattered nation and the abolishment of slavery. Lincoln paid the ultimate price for his conviction, as have many before and after him. And although slavery may now be illegal, it has not been eliminated.

I invite you to join me in continuing the fight to free the enslaved. You may not be able to go in and free a child, but you can support those who do. As Edmund Burke so famously stated, “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”