It’s Not What You Think It Is

An interview with Joy Lee on best practices and challenges for Christian anti-trafficking work

December 7th, 2023 | Rebekah Teuscher

“Can you share more about the background and context that led to your interest in anti-trafficking?”

“My interest started through my previous job, where I learned about the history of women in sexual slavery under the Imperial Japanese military - often referred to as ‘comfort women.’ As a Singaporean-North American, this shed light on my home country and family's context of Singapore during World War II in Asia. I learned this was a forgotten history that still impacted many former comfort women survivors. Through this job, I had the privilege to bring awareness to their unheard stories and advocacy for justice, and contribute to peacebuilding programs.

It was influential for me to read primary accounts from some of the women who survived this treatment, and are now activists for their own cause, reparations, reconciliation, education, and raising awareness about what happened. But many of them were born in the 1920’s, and this group is aging out. Having encountered them and seeing their heart for women today who have experienced sexual violence, it made me want to continue their legacy. That was a big part of motivating me to continue that work through my research.

The other motivator for me was, as a Christian, thinking about God being a God of justice - who sees the unseen and hears those who cry out but are unheard. It was both of those things - my cultural identity, and my identity as a Christian.”

Joy Lee

Joy Lee works with the Humanitarian and Disaster Institute through Wheaton College.

“Tell us a bit about the context for your research. How did it start?”

“The professor for the class I initially wrote this [short paper discussing the relationship between American Christianity and anti-sex trafficking work] for made the point that ‘we all theologize, we all speak of God, so what does it mean to be reflective on that?’ That really got me thinking about how we don’t always practice what we preach, and we are often unaware of how our theologies inform our actions, yet so much of what we believe shapes how we think about and therefore do things.

There’s something about our faith that motivates us to see people who are hurting, and I think that’s really important. But this also means how we understand God ‘seeps into’ how we do and approach work - and a lot of anti-sex trafficking organizations are faith-based. So specifically, I’ve been researching the doctrine of personal salvation - the belief that we are all individually saved by God out of our sin and brokenness - and how that impacts anti-trafficking work done by Christian organizations. How does that belief shape organizational identity and marketing? How does that belief influence the interventions that are valued, practiced, and prioritized?”

“Can you share some of the things you’ve learned through your research?”

“One thing I’ve found is that the intervention of rescue (i.e. rescuing those who are being trafficked) is very controversial, and can be easily mishandled by well intentioned faith-based nonprofits. There’s often this approach or narrative by Christian organizations that looks like ‘busting down the doors, saving poor women’, especially in Asia. However, my research points to this approach, especially coupled with strict shelter care programs, as being a harmful approach because it infantilizes and objectifies women - it makes them out to not have agency.

I feel the underlying issue here is a savior complex. But this mindset is not in line with best practices.

On the flip side, as I’ve read more from Asian-American theologians, I’ve found more productive approaches are defined by a thread of empowerment. I think that reflects Jesus better and speaks to the heart of God more. In place of objectification or believing we are the ‘saviors’ of others, we should think about the importance of the Imago Dei (the theological belief that we are all made in the image of God) and work to humbly empower others by coming alongside them as they exercise agency and freedom of choice. It has led to me and others asking the question ‘What does it look like to listen to survivors of sex trafficking, to women, who are sharing what they hope and desire and what is harmful for them?’”

“You mention a common approach that American Christians take to anti-trafficking - can you explain that narrative, and why it doesn’t lead to successful results?”

“I believe there’s a slow shift away from this, especially with a widening awareness about ethical storytelling, but the common narrative I’m describing follows the imagery of ‘there is a damsel in distress and a hero who saves the day.’ A story you often see in the news or from organizations goes something along the lines of: a poor, scared, young girl was kidnapped from her family and is being sex trafficked. There are very specific details about this young girl’s life, going into depth about her traumatic experiences. Often local government officials where the girl is rescued are portrayed as corrupt and, or at best, indifferent.

And then the nonprofit comes it - maybe along with local law enforcement - to bust down the doors and rescue her from her captors. This girl is scared, but they give her a hug and she’s immediately comforted. If the organization is overtly Christian, you might hear how this girl is smiling, happy, and now knows that Jesus loves her.

The hero narrative, that ‘we go on this quest, we save them, we get them out, everything is better’ is very enticing. It’s very emotionally interesting. But the reality is, trauma healing is not linear.

If you talk to many organizations who take a long-term, relationship-oriented approach to anti-trafficking, you’ll hear them all say that change is not linear. Women coming out of trafficking might experience positive change, but maybe a trigger happens and causes setbacks. Their journeys ‘loop’, they aren’t straight lines.

The stories about dramatic rescue and governments with corrupt people, that are often portrayed in popular media - those stories are not untrue, but in the context of all the anti-trafficking work going on around the world, they’re the exception. When we make these exceptions out to be the norm, we’re really misrepresenting what’s happening, and it skews our understanding of what’s happening most regularly in anti-trafficking.”

“What has your research indicated as best practices when engaging in anti-trafficking work as Christians, then? What advice would you give to those Christians practitioners daily engaged in anti-trafficking?”

“The first thing is, It’s very clear from survivor scholars that it’s important to keep complexity in the story. Everybody’s story is unique, and it’s not always going to be ‘now they’re out of that work and they have a 9-5 job, work with other survivors, are doing great, etc’.  For example, there are women who return to sex work because they can’t make enough money in other ways to get them out of the cycle of poverty.

I think as Christians, we do have good intentions and we want to get people out of the negative situations they’re in. But when we think about sex trafficking, we need to think of it less as a personal morality issue and more as a result of cycles of poverty tied to broken systems.

Second, for practitioners, the resounding advice from all researchers is to listen to survivors - believe what they say they need, what they think is good for them, etc. It is important to have emotionally safe communities, like a rehabilitation center, but if women aren’t allowed to leave them, it can become its own sort of prison. If survivors still feel like they’re under control, they’re not going to thrive and find their own agency and independence.

For example, if a woman has a lot of friends at a bar where she was previously trafficked, and wants to go back to visit them, take the time to discuss this with her. It would likely be harmful to tell this woman ‘you can never step foot in that area again.’  This is a woman with her own agency. Our desire to reform and bring positive change can not be held above someone’s human right to their own decisions and agency.”

“What challenge or encouragement would you give to people who care about anti-trafficking work but are not “on the ground” engaged in it? How can they help?”

“I would encourage everyone to revisit and examine their own intentions and motivations for caring about or doing this work. What about our story has brought us with interest to caring about this issue? What might our mixed motives be? While writing this paper, I’ve had to ask myself, ‘what am I doing? What ideas do I bring into this research from my own background - and how does that affect my perspective on this issue?  Why am I researching this?’ Take time to self-reflect. Externally, learn from or support the work of organizations that demonstrate holistic care, empowerment, and a systemic understanding of the issue.

For people who are interested in advocacy and communications, or just generally want to support this work, I would say to remember that a label does not define the whole person. They are a person first - someone who wants to flourish in life. With that, it’s important to honor the stories of survivors. From a marketing perspective, this is hard - one of the big outstanding questions surrounding this topic is, ‘what does it mean to keep complexity in a story in such a fast-paced, short attention span culture?’ Even if the women never read these stories written about them, we should still want the story to be honoring, because as Christians, we care about upholding the image of God within them.

There are layered realities to who someone is. For example, a woman may be a woman, but she is also an able-bodied woman, a Cambodian woman, from a specific social class, but trafficked in a neighboring country. And all of these layers of who she is impacts her lived experiences and intersect with each other. Trafficking impacts people in different ways because of the different parts of who they are. Thinking about sex trafficking in this intersectional way helps us to have more than just a simple story in our minds for what is happening. It may also help us imagine what could happen if survivors took the lead in combating sex trafficking. 

Finally, I would encourage people to research any anti-trafficking organizations they want to invest in - with their time, money, etc - and look for those positive themes of empowerment and agency building.”

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