God’s Children Are Not for Sale

Globally, almost 50 million people are enslaved, and many of the enslaved are children.

Globally, almost 50 million people are enslaved, and many of the enslaved are children.1 And a particularly evil form of slavery is the enslaving of children for sex trafficking and the production of CSAM (child sexual abuse material). Child sexual abuse material (CSAM) has more than doubled since 2020.2 It is a market that thrives in darkness; it is too terrible for normal people to think about, and there are plenty with deviant desires that keep demand high. In fact, America is one of the top destinations for trafficking.

Sound of Freedom is a film documenting the true story of Timothy Ballard’s work in Columbia that resulted in over 120 trafficked children being freed and over a dozen traffickers being arrested. The organization he founded, Operation Underground Railroad, specializes in finding, freeing, and providing aftercare to victims of trafficking.

Sound of Freedom focuses on a brother and sister who were kidnapped when they and their father were deceived into thinking the children were being given an opportunity to become models. Instead, they were transported across nations and sold from one person to another before finally being rescued and reunited with their father. Ballard (portrayed by Jim Caviezel) ultimately quit his government job to see the mission through.

Angel Studios

Angel Studios, perhaps best known for their series The Chosen, are the producers of the film. While the founders of Angel Studios are Mormons, there is very little overt theological content in the movie. One of the only explicit mentions of God is that “God’s children are not for sale.” Ballard also quotes Matthew 18:6, “It would be better for him to have a great millstone fastened around his neck and to be drowned in the depth of the sea.”

While some Christians may have reservations about seeing a film created by a Mormon studio, it is worth remembering that a lot of mainstream media is created by people who are atheist and even more opposed to the Christian worldview, so if we consume media at all, we are likely consuming things produced by people hostile to our worldview.

Portraying the Dark Underbelly of Human Trafficking

This movie was hard to watch. While there is no on-screen depiction of the sexual abuse of children, there is plenty of implied abuse and descriptions in the speech of pedophiles. There are many shots of terrified children about to be abused—even some depictions of them being kidnapped and forcibly taken away by traffickers. There is a medical description of injuries consistent with sexual abuse of a child. A sobbing girl being tattooed by her trafficker was particularly hard to watch.

Parents should ideally screen the movie themselves before deciding whether their teens are mature enough to handle the content.

There are depictions of the murders of two pedophilic traffickers, a description of what happens to pedophiles in prison, two scenes where rescuers are shot at, and a scene where one character has a gun pointed to his head.

The sheer magnitude of the subject matter portrayed makes the one use of profanity seem tame by comparison. While none of what was portrayed felt gratuitous or unnecessary to the story, this is not a movie for children; it earns its PG-13 rating. Parents should ideally screen the movie themselves before deciding whether their teens are mature enough to handle the content.

Image by Angel Studios.

An Important Movie

Christians were at the forefront of halting the African slave trade because they believed it was wrong to enslave people created in God’s image. But slavery has never truly ended; it has just gone into the shadows.

Psychologically normal adults do not sexualize children and find it hard to even think about such heinous abuse. However, this same reluctance to think about this abuse makes it easier for it to persist.

Created in God’s Image

Christians should be at the forefront of fighting trafficking as part of affirming the equal value of all people as created in God’s image.

Christians like William Wilberforce, Hannah More, and many others were at the epicenter of fighting the transatlantic slave trade because they believed that the Africans who were being kidnapped, sold to European slave traders, and transported around the world were created in the image of God, and no economic benefit could possibly justify their exploitation. While Sound of Freedom ends on a high note, with not only the siblings but 120 other children also rescued, it leaves the viewer with an uneasy awareness that millions of children are enslaved. Christians should be at the forefront of fighting trafficking as part of affirming the equal value of all people as created in God’s image.