Hoping for Safe Harbor
After meeting a survivor of sex trafficking, a local pastor decides to help make a difference to the victims of a horrifying business that is closer than many realize.
It started because he wanted his church to make a difference, especially after his wife and daughter met a stranger who needed help.
Doug Crumbly, senior pastor at Journey Church in Rome, is also one of the leaders of Rome Cares. The nonprofit organization is working to help sex trafficking victims by giving them shelter and support, ranging from holistic care to legal resources to jobs.
It is a complicated, convoluted world these people live in, and Crumbly and Rome Cares members want to change that, he said.
Two years ago, Crumbly’s wife and daughter were at a ladies meeting at Journey Church.
“They looked outside and saw a young woman standing in the parking lot, looking at the church,” he said. “They went outside to see if she needed help. It turned out she was a 20-year-old woman who had escaped from sex traffickers in Atlanta.”
The church took the young woman in, found her food and medical care and helped her find housing. Now, two years later, she has a job and a home and is recovering from the trauma of the life she escaped.
Meeting this young woman made Crumbly want to do something. “I was tired of being a church that didn’t make a difference. I called some friends and we started Rome Cares.”
Crumbly just returned from a visit to Atlanta Dream Center, meeting with members of Out of Darkness, a group that sponsors events on the streets, helping women and children get off the streets and escape the sex-trafficking world.
“They get them off the streets and find them host homes to live in for about 30 days or so, then they send them to long-term care facilities where they can stay for up to a year or two years,” he said.
Crumbly is working to make one of those havens in Floyd County. He has been working with local rehabilitation facilities to establish a place where the rescued women can stay with their children.
While he prefers not to reveal the location, the facility can now hold 40 women and their children. Rome Cares members are working to build onto the facility so it can house up to 12 more.
“Floyd County is a great place,” he said. “It is a wonderful, gracious community and it is a good place for these women to recover.”
Crumbly said he was shocked to learn that Georgia has such a problem with sex trafficking.
“The average age is 13 when a girl is sold into it,” he said. “It is frightening, because so many think it is just in the movies and on television, but that movie, ‘Taken,’ that is real. It really happens. Parents sell their kids, even. In Nashville, 48 people were arrested for it recently. These poor young women and men and children have been through hell.”
The Legislature is taking measures to make a difference as well.
Amendment 2 will be on the ballot this November. It would establish a Safe Harbor for Sexually Exploited Children Fund. The fund would be generated through $2,500 fines on convicted sex traffickers and a yearly $5,000 fee on adult entertainment businesses.
The victims would have their health care, housing, education, child care, legal help and job training paid for by the fund.
“Because of it being an amendment, it would mean that other departments could not easily take the funds and use them for something else,” Crumbly said. “I have heard that many owners of adult establishments are in favor of the amendment.”
Crumbly said he hopes the amendment will pass in November. He also hopes anyone interested in helping the trafficking victims will reach out.
Those interested in donating or helping in any way may call Journey Church at 706-235-1310 or email Crumbly at dcrumbly@romecares.org.