Nightmare Fuel: Confronting The Horrific Reality Of Child Sex Trafficking

Alan Smyth: [00:00:00] Guys, this is on us and you might say, I'm not out there buying sex with anybody, especially a 12 year old. Are you kidding me? Like I'm not doing that. I'm going to say great. Good. That's a good place to start. I'm glad you're not. Most guys aren't the worst mistake that we could make is saying I'm not doing that really bad things.

That means I'm not part of the problem, right? I'm gonna say no, that's not what I'm saying. I'm saying we're all part of the problem because if you're not actively down that dark path, Participating in this brutal crime, then you are passively allowing it to happen right under your nose. And that's, that isn't any better.

We're complicit in the very things that we detest if we know about it and we don't do anything to combat it or to stop it.

David Dowlen: Here's the million dollar question. How do men like us reach our full [00:01:00] potential growing into the men we dream of being while taking care of our responsibilities? Working, being good husbands, fathers, and still take care of ourselves? Well, that's the big question. In this podcast, we'll help you answer those questions and more.

My name is Brent and welcome to the Fallible Man Podcast.

Welcome to the Fallible Man Podcast. Your home for all things man, husband, and father. Big shout out to Fallible Nation. That's our private community. And guys, if you're a first time listener, thanks for showing up. Hey, we know there's a lot competing for your attention right now in the world. So we really appreciate you taking time to check us out.

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I'm really excited. Because this episode, we're welcoming back a former guest and an old friend. He's the [00:02:00] CEO of saving innocence, which I'm going to let him tell you all about. Alan Smith, Alan, welcome back to the founding man podcast.

Alan Smyth: Great, Brent. Thanks for having me. It's fun to be back after a couple of years.

David Dowlen: I'm, I'm really excited about this followup because you guys got some exciting things going on. Alan, we start things a little bit lighter these days, just to kind of ease our way into things. So, in your own words, today, in this moment, who is Alan Smith?

Alan Smyth: Well, that's a great question. I'll give you the highlight.

In this last year, I became a grandfather for the first time. So, uh, Alan Smith, to answer your question, is a grandpa for the first time ever.

David Dowlen: Congratulations, bro. That's awesome.

Alan Smyth: Yeah. Yeah, it's, uh, it's all the cliches are correct and, uh, it's, it's fun to watch and fun to be part of and fun to watch your son who, you know, it's just like a split screen in my brain, my son, who's the father, but I'm also seeing him as a knucklehead, breaking everything and ruining things and driving as crazy as a kid.

And now he's got his own [00:03:00] kids. So that's pretty crazy.

David Dowlen: That's, that's so cool. I love seeing people make that journey. I thought my own parents personally, like lost their mind when they started having grandkids. I was like, Who are you? This is not the same person that raised me.

Alan Smyth: Yeah, exactly. Yeah, no, it's very fun.

But beyond that, you already mentioned it. Uh, I lead an anti human trafficking agency based in LA called saving innocence. So my day job is, uh, doing everything I can do to make that organization thrive and do all the work that's in front of us, which is too much. I wish it was shrinking. I wish we had less to do, but sadly that's not the case.

We have more to do all the time. And, uh, And it keeps me busy to say that

David Dowlen: guys, like I said, Alan is coming back. This is the second time or actually third time, uh, somewhere in there. Uh, I got to do a series with him and his coauthor of the book. Jessica make a couple of years ago in season three, we're going to dive deeper into that in a little [00:04:00] bit, Alan, if you could have any superpower, what would it be

Alan Smyth: if I could have any superpower?

Wow, that's a great question. Um, I think I'd want to fly like Superman so I could get around and get away from the L. A. Traffic. How's that sound?

David Dowlen: I've only been to L. A. Once, but I totally get that. And I'm sure it's gotten worse since I was there.

Alan Smyth: It's never getting better. That's for sure. It's only getting worse.

David Dowlen: If I was to sit down with your family for dinner, what's one embarrassing story they were telling you on me?

Alan Smyth: Hmm. That's a great question. What would the family? What embarrassing story? My wife just walked in sharing. What embarrassing story with the family tell about me?

I

Alan Smyth: don't know if your audience is ready for this, but there was one moment when I had a bowel misfunction. We could call it that and was driving home on the freeway and stuck in all this L. A. [00:05:00] traffic. And pulled off the freeway and almost made it to the bathroom of the quick stop, but barely not quite, and it was not good.

David Dowlen: Oh, okay. Yeah. How about that? Yeah, no, that's good. That's good,

Alan Smyth: right? But you know what? It wasn't truly embarrassing in the moment because no one knew about it except for me. So, um, in order for it to be actually embarrassing, other people would have had to known and seen it, but it was just me living out that brutal moment.

Um, but yeah,

David Dowlen: now it's on public record. So

Alan Smyth: yeah, it is exactly. It can be truly embarrassing later. Yeah. Right.

David Dowlen: What's your best playground insult? My best playground

Alan Smyth: insult. You're going to get me in trouble on this, on this podcast. I didn't know you're coming to incriminate me on things. Uh, this isn't truly mine, but what came to my mind is, uh, from one of the great all time movies, The Sandlot.

Tell me you've seen The Sandlot.

David Dowlen: Oh, yeah.

Alan Smyth: And, uh, I don't actually mean [00:06:00] this for real, trust me, whoever's listening to this, but one of the great, one of the great lines, when the two groups of boys were arguing about who's had the better baseball team, and, uh, one of the boys said to the boy, you play ball like a girl.

And for those boys in that setting, and for any 10 or 12 year old boy, pretty much that's That would be an insult, even though, you know, there's a lot of great people out there for sure.

David Dowlen: Well, it's not like we are all original. I mean, right, right. We have like an entire generation, like Gen X, the go to, like every time I ever ask that anybody born in Gen X is generally your mom.

Yeah. It's your mom joke, always. Right, right. That's good. Purchase of 100 or less that you made in the last year has had the biggest impact in your life.

Alan Smyth: The purchase of 100 or less, is that what you said? Mm hmm. So I spent a hundred dollars or less on something. And what was the impact of it? Is that what you're telling me?

Biggest impact in your life, most useful thing you bought. Oh [00:07:00] boy. I should've got the notes before we were meeting here. And in the, in the six minutes of time that I would have had since we, since we set this meeting up and now we're doing it, um, the biggest impact of my life on a hundred dollars or less.

I don't know that I have a thing that I had purchased that would answer that question. But, um, how about last. Last weekend, my wife and I went out for a great dinner and, uh, had a wonderful evening together and it was about a hundred dollars. How's that?

David Dowlen: That's, that's more than fair, right? Yeah. Okay. You know, it's one of those things, everybody has their scale of what really moves the needle for them.

Right. There is no wrong answer in this first part.

Alan Smyth: Yeah. Biggest pet peeve. Uh, my biggest pet peeve, um, probably when I'm driving on this LA traffic that we've mentioned to a couple of times. When you have people in the wrong lanes, they're driving too slow in the fast [00:08:00] lane or they're like, they generally don't know what to do.

They're, they're overwhelmed with all the traffic and they're not doing well. And it's struggling. They're causing a problem for everybody. That's probably it. That'd be orange juice, pulp, no pulp, some pulp. I'm good with some pulp. Yeah. Yeah, I'm good. I'm not anti pulp, but I'm fine. Whatever you put in front of me, if I'm drinking orange juice, I'll be good with it.

But I think a little bit, say kind of half pulp would be great.

David Dowlen: All right. What's one thing that everybody should know about you before we dig in today?

Alan Smyth: Before we begin. So we haven't begun yet. Is that what you're telling me? Yeah. Um, what should they know about me? Well, I already told you I'm a new grandfather.

I already told you I'm married, uh, to my wife. Um, let's say that I, I care about what's right in the world. And I'm going to do my best to make the wrong things right. [00:09:00] Uh, I had a, a friend actually, and we'll get to the book we're gonna talk about, but the, the gentleman who wrote the, um, the Forward, John Richmond is a former US ambassador, and he actually talks about it in the forward of the book.

He and he, he talked about his definition of justice is making wrong things right, and very simple. And, um, and I said, I, I ascribe to that. That's, that's what you should know about me. So I'm trying to make wrong things, right? Not every wrong thing out there, I can't do it all, but. In this one space of human trafficking and exploitation, I'm trying to make the wrong things right in the lives of those that have been affected.

David Dowlen: Guys, we've been getting spent a little time with Alan in case you missed him back in season three. And I will be sure and have those shows directly linked under this show. So you can go back to that series that we did a couple of years ago. You absolutely will want to follow up with those episodes because it will give you more context to what we're talking about today and the next part of the show, we're going to dive into Alan's book men fight for me.[00:10:00]

Um, you guys know, I read a lot of books for my show. This is the most important book I've ever read, period. And so I absolutely love having Alan back on. We're going to talk about what's going on with human trafficking and how you can get involved and how you can make a difference. We'll be back in just a few minutes with Alan Smith.

I'm calling on all men right now to stand up and stand against this horrific crime. It is estimated over 300, 000 children are being sex trafficked in the United States alone. Every single day. I want you to get on your social media. I want you to follow saving innocence. org or fight for me. net. Both of these charities are working to end child trafficking in the United States and abroad.

You can donate at www. thefallibleman. com slash shop and buy our inhuman trafficking merchandise and all proceeds will be. Given [00:11:00] indefinitely to saving innocence. org. You can also go to www. savinginnocence. org slash donate and donate directly to saving innocence, man. It is time for us to fight and stop this horrible thing known as human trafficking.

Guys, we're back with Alan Smith from saving innocence, and we just spent a few minutes to get to know him as we like to do on the show and who he is. Now, Alan, I'm going to give you a couple of minutes here and just. For people who haven't heard you before who people who haven't heard your episode previously, tell us about saving innocence and what you guys do,

Alan Smyth: uh, saving innocence is a 14 year old anti human trafficking agency based in Los Angeles and we are boots on the ground partnered with law enforcement and others showing up, uh, in moments of crisis.

Um, for the 1st 12 of the 14 years, we were specifically focused on Child victims of sex trafficking. Um, [00:12:00] there are different forms of human trafficking. There's different ages that it affects. But we, our specialty, have been minors, children, average age of entry is around 12, 13, 14, in that range right there.

That's the average age of entry into sex trafficking in our country. And, um, it's been our honor to walk with those kiddos and help them get back on their feet and reclaim, uh, the life that has been stolen from them. And, um, there's a lot that goes into that, but that's, That's, that's the main effort that we've done.

I said the first 12 years, uh, two years ago, we stepped into co leadership of the LA County Regional Human Trafficking Task Force, partnered with about 60 different agencies, a lot of law enforcement agencies, some federal agencies, Homeland Security and FBI, the DOJ, and a lot of other agencies on the ground in LA and, um, working together to disrupt this crime.

And then make sure that those have been affected are taken good care of as well from a kind of a national level. Uh, and then the [00:13:00] third part of our work is that we're also a foster family agency within Saving Innocence, specifically focused on these kids that have had this brutal experience of, of being trafficked.

Looking for families, healthy, loving, intact, protective families that can be trained by us. And then we can, um, join them with one of these kiddos that we're working with. And sort of give them a shot and give them a home and a family that they've been denied. So that's, that's the main, uh, answer to saving innocence.

And, um, we're, we're doing all that we can do

to,

Alan Smyth: to, uh, to help those that have been affected and disrupt the crime before it even happens.

David Dowlen: Now, earlier this year, the movie Sounds of Freedom came out and I'm grateful because it, it brought a lot more national attention to something that a lot of people aren't really intentionally conscious of.

I think most people [00:14:00] look at human trafficking and we think outside our country, right? That's happening other places. That doesn't happen here. And so that brought it to the main stage. Has that helped you guys at all in your efforts?

Alan Smyth: Yeah, maybe. Um, I'm sorry, were you done? Have a little more spotlight on it?

Yeah, it, well, it did. And there was some, there was initial push of, uh, conversations. We were getting emails and. People who hadn't thought about trafficking before a lot of people are seeing that movie as surprised Hollywood and everybody else how much attention it was getting and, um, while the movie portrayed a very different version of human trafficking than we face here domestically, it still was shocking to sort of sitting for two hours and see what was happening, even if it looks different than it does here, which it does, but, um, we definitely got a bump in interest and people saying, what can I do?

How can I help? And, um, you know, I was grateful for the movie in [00:15:00] that regard. Um, now I'd love to see a high quality version of a movie made, uh, for movie number two of, um, you know, domestic sex trafficking here in our cities and, you know, with the American kids. Um, and now that, now they softened up the market, now people are willing to, you know, make and then go watch this other movie.

They might be willing to do a second one that is more applicable to what's happening here. And that'll be a great day when that happens.

David Dowlen: Do you guys have any ends to get contact with like angel studios who did that one or something might, you might be able to talk to him about that.

Alan Smyth: Yeah, we've been in contact with him a little bit.

And, um, I joined a panel with, uh, along with Tim Ballard, the guy who, the real life guy and some other people, you know, a couple months ago. And, um, so I, you know, we're not the ones who are going to be making a movie, but we'll, uh, we'll cheer them on when whoever else, you know, gathers all the money and the actors and all the Hollywood stuff to make it happen.

We'll be cheering them on when they do.

David Dowlen: Well, yeah, but hopefully you guys will be a [00:16:00] great resource for them in that.

Yeah,

David Dowlen: we'd

Alan Smyth: be, we'd be happy to. We care that it's done correctly and if they wanted to bring us, anybody wanted to bring us into that, we'd love to put our eyes on it and help it, help it be told the right way.

That would be important for us.

David Dowlen: Now, you said. Sound of freedom portrayed something that's different than here for a lot of people that is their limit, right? That's this is the newest exposure they have to this world I know when I read your book two years ago, my heart was so Pained at realities. I had no idea happened In my community, in my area, you say that movie was different.

So tell us more about what we're seeing here in our country and our communities.

Alan Smyth: Yeah. Well, if any of your listeners haven't seen that movie, it's, it's a hundred percent and a international portrayal [00:17:00] of human trafficking. And, um, so it looks very different. They, they, they portrayed, cams showing, you know, kids getting just kidnapped, taken off the street by a car that drives by.

And then sort of sold away in a cargo ship and going to some other distant land. And, and then there, you know, in some mountain village, you know, working and being available for sex trafficking. So while all that stuff, I don't, I'm not saying that the way it portrayed things didn't happen or hasn't happened, but what's different is in our, you know, big, uh, American cities and really the small ones too, but in our setting in, in LA and other cities like that, um, you don't see a lot of just.

Kidnapping off the street grab throw somebody in a van and whisk them away. Although that has happened It's a more insidious Usually a kid that's in the foster care program already. They've already had their family blown up and Some older boy comes in portraying [00:18:00] Looking like he's a boyfriend of sorts, maybe even a father of sorts, depending and kind of groom, sir, is the term there's a grooming process.

It could take weeks or months to get her to trust him. And they start a relationship and he tells her everything that she's, you know, always wanted to know that she's beautiful and, and worthy and how he wants to have a life with her. And, and he sort of subtly. Slides in this idea of getting paid to have sex and he can bring in customers, but it won't be very long, just for, just for a little bit of time.

We just have to make some money so we can run away and have this great life together, which she's always dreamed of having a great life with somebody who's going to take care of her. So it's, it's, it's, it's this, like I said, this insidious, um, evil, you might call it, there's predators out there that are preying upon the vulnerable, and usually that means someone that's younger.

And, uh, when, when that young girl has this charming boy come into her life. He has bad intentions from [00:19:00] moment one, but because largely she hasn't seen a good example of a healthy male in her life at, of any age, she can't really tell the difference. It may or may not be obvious, but it's absolutely not obvious to her.

So that's what, that's what's happening a lot, um, via human trafficking. Yeah, I love the movie Taken, you know, Liam Neeson and, and, uh, you know, it's kind of the father's pursuit and he sort of blows up everybody in the movie that should get blown up and like, you know, like I'm in on all that. But it's not a great, accurate picture of what typically human trafficking looks like.

It's not usually that shocking kidnapping. Um, it's not usually being handcuffed, you know, to a mattress somewhere. It's usually, uh, this relationship. And the young girl doesn't even necessarily think that she's being trafficked. She just thinks maybe she's in a domestic violence relationship. And he'll be her, he'll make her do things she doesn't want to do, and then he'll come, I'm so sorry, I'll apologize to you, and it'll never happen again.

And then it happens again, it's sort of this domestic [00:20:00] violence cycle of abuse, that, um, she has no way out of. She can't figure out how to get out of it, and if she tries to run, then it will get real violent. If it hasn't already, it'll get real violent. She's not allowed to leave, she's not allowed to choose.

And, um, that's the cycle that's happening in our American cities, with our American born U. S. citizens. And, um, it is happening in a shocking way overseas, but that's not the only place it's happening.

David Dowlen: Alan, uh, we're going to talk about the book in a minute, but guys respond to stats, right? And Padromalee, as you know, my listeners are male for the most part.

We do have a couple of girls who listened to us and we do appreciate you ladies. Thank you. Uh, stats help men process things. So give us some numbers to put this

in perspective.

Alan Smyth: Yeah, if you, if you pull back and zoom out to globally, um, the international justice mission who worked internationally predominantly or exclusively, they recently said they think there's 45 to 50 million, [00:21:00] um, slaves worldwide, meaning human trafficking, human trafficking victims.

It's called the modern day slavery. And so some 45 to 50 million vulnerable people around the world. I don't know how that compares the different sizes of countries, but, um, it's, that's not a small number. If you come into our country. People that count things usually all agree upon the fact there's at least 300, 000 children being, um, trafficked for sex here in our country, predominantly U.

1. born American citizens. We did some work with the state of Texas several years ago. They came to us and said, we got a problem. Can we talk to you? We'd love some help. So we consulted with them for a couple of years and they determined through their metrics and their study that in Texas they had 90, 000.

victims, minors being trafficked for sex just in Texas. So, you know, you start adding that up. You go to Los Angeles, go to Miami, you go to New York and everywhere in between, um, I think 300, 000 is [00:22:00] really low. It's, I think it's a lot bigger. It's, it's a hard crime to quantify because it's, it's in the shadows, it's in the darkness.

And, um, you know, it's not like, Somebody robbing a 7 Eleven. They know exactly how many 7 Elevens got robbed last year. You know, there's an address, there's security footage, like, they know where the stores are, they know when they get robbed. Uh, this is different. These are, these are kids that are in the system already.

Uh, some would call them throwaway kids. When they go missing, nobody goes looking for them. So it's hard to know exactly how many are out there. But, um, I think there's easily a half a million. Of our kids out there from our communities, um being brutalized and abused in this horrific way

David Dowlen: guys Let that let that register and sink in okay For sure.

You're saying the experts are agreeing on 300, 000. Alan's been doing this for a while now. He is deep in this world and is thinking the numbers at half a million. That's that's every month in the United States. [00:23:00] Is that correct?

Alan Smyth: Well, it's just at all times. I mean, it's, it's every day basically. Yeah.

Because when they're working, when they're quote working, um, as you met my co author, Jessica, last time we were on together and then the book, uh, men fight for me, she talks about the fact and the little promo, I don't think I show it here, just put it on your other channels. But, um, She even says I typically have between 10 sexual encounters every single day.

And so that's just one girl, one young girl, 10 a day, times 365 days in a year. Maybe, maybe a slow day here or there, but not really. So you measure, you know, multiply that by hundreds of thousands and the numbers go off the chart. It's mind boggling.

David Dowlen: And guys, we're going to talk about the book a little bit.

And then I am going to share that promo. Uh, But before we get to this promo, because part of the, part of the occasion for Alan jumping back on is they've taken the boat to a whole nother level. But [00:24:00] before we go to there, I want to talk about the book a little bit. So Alan coauthored this book, men fight for me with not just one of his coworkers there, Jessica's survivor, but also he, he talks to a lot of survivors.

He, women he's worked with to officials. And put together, you even, you even talked to a trafficker, which was mind boggling in the book, because. I, I wanted to hate them just instantly. And that part of the book just caught me off guard so much. Tell us about the book. Tell us about Mimphi for me.

Alan Smyth: Yeah.

About, um, I don't know, five years ago or six years ago, I was at a, an awareness training event, uh, at a church on a Saturday and Jessica, who you just mentioned was on a panel along with Kim, our founder of Saving Innocence. And there was a number of other people there that are, you know, having this conversation, a couple hundred people in the room.

And, uh, [00:25:00] Right, sitting next to Jessica was a woman named Rachel Thomas, who since has become a friend. I didn't know her until that, that moment, that day. Um, but she was telling her story and how she had been lured in and swept into trafficking when she went away to college. Um, and she's in the middle of telling her story and her trauma.

And at one point she said, you know, I, I gave, I began to, I gave up. I could see no way out. And she said, I could no longer fight for myself. I needed someone to fight for me. And those words rang in my ears, uh, penetrated my, my mind and my heart and my soul. And here's a young trafficking victim saying, I needed someone to fight for me.

And I love there's a bunch of men on this, this, you know, In your audience because that resonates with me and I know it resonates with a lot of men. Um, and I thought to myself, I'll fight for you and I'll fight for you and you and you and we'll see how many good men I can get to fight with me. That's kind of my lane.

There's a lot of great women out there [00:26:00] battling this crime. Great. Keep going. The missing ingredient is men. We don't have enough men out there fighting enough good men. And so I didn't know it in that moment, but the book was born in that moment. And she said, I needed someone to fight for me and I was kind of wrestling with that for a while.

I thought, what am I going to do? I have a male voice. I can say things to men. I can challenge men in a way that others can't maybe. And so that's when I approached a number of people, um, and shared the idea. Let's, I want to communicate this important challenge in charge to men. And Jessica on our savings team at the time as a survivor, a number of others.

There are six really prominent, amazing survivors that jumped at the chance. I'd love to. Collaborate with you on this book. I'm so glad you're writing a book for men. Their lived experience says, um, mostly men are the buyers, and mostly men are the sellers. It's mostly men that are the problem with human trafficking.

Not even close. Indisputable. So we have to get a message right to the heart of men. Now, women are [00:27:00] reading the book, and I've gotten so much great feedback. You know, probably 70 percent of the book, doesn't matter if you're a man or woman, it's breaking down the crimes, explaining it, hearing stories. But there's a good 30 percent of the book that's me and my male voice.

Sort of looking guys in the eye figuratively as I'm reading this book saying we have to be better and, and here's what's happening and here's how you're contributing to it. Um, and there's some action items, you know, about things to do and not do moving forward and a good healthy challenge to all men everywhere.

So that, that, that's the book. It's found at fight for me. net little website where the book is. And, um, you can find it for sale on Amazon. You can type it in there, but if you go to fight for me. net, there's biographies of these. People, a lot of contributors and these survivors and, and, and their websites and their books.

You can buy a book, you know, that they wrote, uh, tell them their own story and, and it just kind of be part of the conversation and, um, it's been really well received out there in the last couple of years.

David Dowlen: Now, tell us about your exciting announcement,

Alan Smyth: right? [00:28:00] Yeah. So, uh, Tuesday, March 5th, I think your audience is going to see parts of this on Tuesday, but maybe this entire episode will air on Wednesday.

So Tuesday, March 5th, um, there's a big announcement. And we're making it right here, right now, that, uh, this book, uh, is now going to be released as an audio version of the book. So many people, they drive a lot, or they go, they exercise a lot, and they're walking or jogging, or, or, you know, they just don't really like to read as much, and, and they need, they consume their content better by listening to podcasts and listening to books and those kinds of things.

So the goal is to get as many people consuming this content as possible and with a special emphasis on the male audience and most guys that I know don't like to read a lot. You're probably an anomaly, Brent. You said you like to read a lot. Most guys don't like to read a lot. So it's not a long book.

It's like 230 pages or something like that. It's, it's, it's an easy read from that standpoint. Maybe some of the stuff is challenging on the inside of the book, but it's not over the top challenging. I don't think. We could have gone, we could have gone more, but we wanted to [00:29:00] keep it on the right side of the line where people are going to continue reading it and not be, you know, turned off when they hear some of the stuff that we could have said.

But here's the unique portion of this book, which I'm super excited about. So a couple of years ago, I actually had knee surgery and it's kind of laid up, not doing much. And I wanted to read some, I'm one of those guys that doesn't like to read a lot. And two of the amazing experts of survivors that are, that are in this book we're talking about, they already had their own book and they already had made an audio version of their book, them reading their book on audio.

And I listened to both of those books, just as I was kind of rehabbing my knee, and I was really impacted. It was so powerful to hear them in their voice, telling their story, maybe partly because I knew them by now and they were, you know, friends. And so it meant more to me than maybe just a stranger, but it was very impactful that it was their voice telling their story.

And so I had this idea. What if we, what if we got as many of the contributors as possible? There's 15 or 20 people contribute, contributing [00:30:00] to this book and, and some are just really short anecdotes and others are much more, you know, substantial. And I had a friend who's, you know, has a studio and, you know, I paid him a couple of bucks, but he basically just donated the recording of it.

And, um, through the course of about a year, I mean, it took about a year. To bring everybody into the studio, particularly these six women, these survivors, uh, big time, but then a bunch of others, like I told you, the U S ambassadors in there and a bunch of bunch of guys that contributed their picture. Of what authentic masculinity is.

They made their way into the studio. So now we just finished, uh, the sound engineering of it, the, you know, the editing of it, and it came out phenomenal, just the right amount of sound effects to add some realism, but not over the top. And, um, you know, just some siren in the background, something's happening and a door closing, just some interesting little sound effects.

But we have this conversation, you know, a lot of, a lot of audio books. They're read not even by the author. A lot of authors will read their audio book. It's just one person usually reading their audio book. [00:31:00] And sometimes again, just someone they hired in some cases. Well, this is some, I don't know, 15 different voices, the actual people that actually contributed to the book.

And like I said, Jessica, who's my coauthor, shares a lot of her personal story and a lot of her personal life. Um, she's in reading her story, telling that story. So it's pretty powerful, incredibly powerful. And I'm hoping that everybody's going to get it. You can, it's available anywhere. You get your audio books, audible and all these other places.

Um, look for it, get it, listen to it, listen to it again, listen to it a third time and pass it along to somebody else. Cause it's really powerful.

David Dowlen: Now guys, I wasn't exaggerating. I read a lot of books for my podcasts. As you know, we've had a lot of authors on over the years we've been doing this. I read a lot of books personally.

I'm highly into reading and I love audio books. So I'm super excited about this because I, I didn't know, like, I never listened to audio books until about two years ago. I was like, Oh my gosh, I've been missing out for so [00:32:00] long. Uh, it, it more than increases the amount of how I can read and books I can read.

But the fact that you got these people to read their stories, to put it in their voice, I've already seen the preview you guys put out. Uh, I, I got, I was tearing up just cause I remember those portions of the book. As I'm hearing it in their words, and I will be buying an audio book myself. Uh, I, I read the book,

it

David Dowlen: changed me forever.

Now I want to hear it in their voices. I'm very excited about that. So guys, we're going to roll this promotional clip for the book, and we'll be right back with Alan Smith.

Video: I look at the tattoo on my neck as a battle scar, the pimp who kidnapped me, branded me like I was his slave and it was done against my will.

I began to prepare for my death. He grabbed me by my hair and dragged me down the street with my knees scraping the ground.

Alan Smyth: This world and these kids need you.

Video: I typically had over 10 [00:33:00] sexual encounters every single day. This was my life and I was now living it one moment at a time. And I would do whatever I had to do in order to live.

I thought that people valued me most based on sex. I thought sex was the most valuable thing I had to offer this world. It was despicable and degrading, but I felt like I had no way out. I needed someone to fight for me.

I discovered that I was not alone in my pain. I experienced incredible breakthroughs. I see myself making strides and growing stronger every day. It is a constant battle and daily decision to heal. Those old vulnerabilities of being alone and unimportant resurfaced. Understanding God's love and being able to believe and receive that love is critical.

Justice demands that traffickers not commodify and dehumanize inherently valuable people. I trust that my story will help motivate you into action. [00:34:00]

Alan Smyth: How can I possibly turn my back on thousands of young girls and boys in need of strong men to fight for them? The answer is, I can't.

Video: Children and young women like me need you to fight for them.

Alan Smyth: It starts right here, right now, with you and with me. It's go time.

Video: There is so much more to my life, and my story is not done being written.

David Dowlen: Alright guys, now, that's just the trailer. The audiobook is out, and If you're not a big reader, you know what? I I'm, I wasn't always a big reader, but I've loved audio books. So I started listening to audio books. I'm so glad I found that medium and the best books read by are read by their authors. Usually this, this is incredible that you managed to get all these people together to do this and put it in their own voice.

So [00:35:00] guys, I highly encourage you to go check it out. Alan, what are you hoping to accomplish with this besides just raising awareness?

Alan Smyth: I'm hoping that millions of men will, uh, either read the paperback or, but now at this point we made it easy for you. I have no excuse. I'm hoping that millions of men will consume this book, either the written form or now the audio form.

Audio form is easy. You're driving and, you know, in the commute to traffic or you're, you're going for a walk, you know, put your, your headphones on, whatever. However, you do want to do that. I'm hoping that millions of men will do that. And by the way, um, Any possible profits from this we're splitting that up the survivors that are in the book.

Um, You know are benefiting financially if and when should you know, some resources come in because of these sales If that helps so I would uh I want millions of men to listen or read to this, read this book. You can find it at fight for me. net. And the video that you just [00:36:00] saw in this podcast is already posted at fight for me.

net. Go back and look, look at it, look for it, share it on your social media, email it to your friends. We need an army of men to step into this battle and different people have different capacity and some people can be all in. Other people, they don't have a lot of time or energy and they're still learning about it.

That's fine. Just take another step forward wherever you are. At the very least, buy the book or listen to this book, Eat Better Yet, because I've already talked about today. It's really, really powerful to have the real people. Uh, we're telling their stories, saying it, um, in this audio book, it's incredibly powerful.

Do that. And, and then, um, and then, and then let it be what it is, uh, be impacted how you are impacted. I'm not trying to orchestrate that part. That's between you and your maker and your spouse or whatever. And, um, I would hope that, um, millions of men and others, but the lane right now is men, the fallible man, [00:37:00] um, I would hope that millions of men would spring into action, read the book, pray about what you heard, lose sleep at night, have an upset stomach, uh, bloodshot eyes because you're not sleeping, whatever that might be, rest in that.

And somewhere in the darkness, you'll be motivated. To move into act and there's a lot of, a lot of ideas of how you can do that. There's the macro and the micro. You got to read the book and listen to the book. You spell out all the different ways that you can get involved. And that's my hope and my prayer that you would get involved.

Don't just be a reader of the book. Don't just be a listener of the book. Do those things. But then I challenge you to get off the couch, get in the game and do something about this horrific crime. Of human exploitation and sex trafficking, often, which is of minors of children. That's what I'm hoping [00:38:00] consume the book and get involved and do something.

Go to saving innocence. org. If you want to check out the organization that I lead in LA, uh, but you know, there's probably a anti human trafficking agency, not far from wherever you're listening to this, uh, Google anti trafficking agency near me and make a difference in their organization. Look at their website, see how many people they have, give them a call, send them an email.

How many staff do you have? 8? 10? 20? What? 5? And the next time you go to the store, buy an extra Starbucks gift card or something, and just send it to them all, just with a handwritten note. They don't get handwritten notes anymore, but a handwritten note. Thanks for your hard work, we appreciate what you're doing, we're cheering you on.

To the, you know, the eight or 10 staff that are there. Oh, it'd be great. I mean, incredible people know that we're doing this. Wow. Like everybody can do that. Y'all can do that. You know, maybe you buy a 5 gift card. Cause that's all you can do. Great. They can get a cup of coffee. Everybody can do that or go big and, um, see, ask them what they need.

You know, what, what do you guys need and start pushing it out? Okay. [00:39:00] The holidays next fall. What can I do? Well, we're having a big Christmas party. We're having a thing. We're doing this, we're doing that. We're gathering items. There is something for everybody and, uh, to do. And, and so my hope is that everybody would do something and it all adds up.

David Dowlen: Now, if you don't know, right, if you're sitting here listening to this going, What can I do? Alan didn't leave you hanging. There are appendices in the back of the book. First thing you run into when you finish the book is things you can do at an individual level followed by things your church can do. You can get your church involved in this.

Bye. Uh, I appreciate the foresight in that because I finished the book the first time and it was, that was my immediate reactions. What can I do? What, what can I do? And so I was really glad you had that in there because like the immediate responses, God, I need to do something. Yeah. I have little girls.

I've been, I have so many little girls in my family, worked with teenage girls for [00:40:00] years. Guys, it's nightmare fuel. Honest to God. If you're a father, if you have women in your life, it's nightmare fuel when you read this. Because you think this is some far world away. And when you read the stories to some of these survivors, they weren't in downtown New York.

This happens in small towns all the time. This isn't somewhere on the other side of the world. This is happening in your community, whether you want to believe it or not.

Alan Smyth: Uh, the Polaris project runs the national hotline and you can go to find them on the website. And, um, they have, uh, calls regularly every year, annually from all 50 States.

So it's happening in every state. I won't say every zip code because that might not be true, but it's happening all over the country, whether it's a dense urban center like LA or if it's out in the oil fields of Fargo, North Dakota or something like that and everywhere in between. And, um, you know, [00:41:00] I think, you know, there's stuff that we can do.

Like I said, buy some gift cards and, you know, become a monthly donor of whatever amount to the trafficking agency that of your choice. Sure. Do those things. That's easy. But what I'm hoping for is that when millions of men consume this content, they're going to be shaken like you were, Grant. And that, um, you know, the, the solution starts with us as we look in the mirror, you know, one of the later chapters in the book, it talks about looking in the mirror.

Um, we have to sync up our life, uh, What are we thinking about? What are we doing in the shadows, in the dark, when the light's not on, when our wife is in bed? What are we doing to contribute to human exploitation? What kind of music are we allowing in our house? What kind of images are we allowed on our own personal devices?

Or, if we have kids old enough, what are we allowing them to look at? It starts at home. Be the right husband for your wife. Be the right dad for your kids. [00:42:00] You're, you're young girls when they get to a certain age, they're desperately looking for a healthy male. What does it look like? Like, what does it mean out there?

What should I expect? I'm watching my dad and my mom interact. I'm watching my dad as he interacts with the, the waitress at the restaurant. They're learning about life and you don't have to talk about it that much. And if you're the right kind of man, looking them, these, you know, women you interact with in the eyes, saying please and thank you, treating them with respect.

That's going to send a message. Not only to your daughter is going to send a message to your son. He needs a role model that he can emulate and he's looking to emulate you. So what kind of dad, what kind of father, what kind of man are you? And this book, um, is going to poke you and nudge you along that track and cause you to think about all those things start there and then sure.

Send us a few gift cards and, and, you know, send a couple of bucks somewhere, but starting the home and, um, [00:43:00] we could make a giant impact in this area if we focused and got after it.

I

David Dowlen: feel like there's almost a mic drop there, but instead of me saying that outright, guys, you've seen it in the movies. Now you've heard about it on the news. This is the world we live in. This is insane. The estimates are that there are more people in some form of slavery, whether that's forced labor or sex trafficking more now than there was historically a hundred years ago or 200 years ago.

I live in Washington state. We actually have a task force on this because we have a lot of slave labor in Washington. Uh, people don't want to talk about it, [00:44:00] especially cause I live in an agricultural area of Washington. We have a lot of slave force traffic and that's a minute number compared to the sex trafficking in the state of Washington.

Uh, I, I looked into it after our last conversation about this and I was horrified to find out that Washington state ranks very high in human sex trafficking in the United States as far as the states go. Uh, the prevalence just. It was mind boggling. I knew Washington and has some issues, right? Every state has their issues, but I never would have for a minute that that was such a massive thing here.

Guys, this will open your eyes, but as Alan saying, it starts at home. It starts with you. We don't think we contribute to this, but trust me, read the book, listen to the book, [00:45:00] it starts with you in your home, in your heart, in your choices. And those choices are going to affect your children and somebody else's children and your grandchildren, Alan, what do you want people to take away from this conversation?

Alan Smyth: I want them to get this book, read this book, listen to the book. And then, as I mentioned earlier, I want them to do something, get, get involved. We can no longer be asleep at the switch. We have to take responsibility. For the world that we're leaving for our kids and our grandkids, and I got this little nearly one year old little grandson like I, I feel that deeply, what kind of world am I leaving for him, and all the other little ones that are too young to know anything about anything, and they're going to grow up in a state of the world in the state of their city that they didn't [00:46:00] create that we are responsible for leaving them.

And so I want, I want guys to take this personally. I'm convinced that people don't take it seriously because they don't take it personally. Uh, guys, this is on us and you might say, I'm not out there buying sex with anybody, especially a 12 year old. Are you kidding me? Like I'm not doing that. I'm going to say great.

Good. That's a good place to start. I'm glad you're not. Most guys aren't the worst mistake that we could make is saying, I'm not doing that really bad things. That means I'm not part of the problem, right? I'm going to say, no, that's not what I'm saying. I'm saying we're all part of the because if you're not actively down that dark path, participating in this brutal crime, then you are passively allowing it to happen right under your nose.

And that's, that isn't any better. We're complicit in the very things that we detest [00:47:00] if we know about it and we don't do anything to combat it or to stop it. So read the book, listen to the book, let your heart be moved and then get involved because we must do something. And I'll let you guys figure out what that makes sense for you.

Got a lot of money? Great. Give a lot of it away. Are you good at graphic design? Great. Offer to make a video or a flyer for some organization like this. Like, what is it? You can do something. Do something, guys, because our children are hanging in the balance. The future is hanging in the balance. The soul of our society is hanging in the balance.

We can no longer let women and children and boys and vulnerable people be bought and sold like a commodity. It's all hands on deck. We don't have a minute to waste, and we need all of you to jump in on this thing. Go to fightforme. net. There's resources there. Go to savingmisses. org. You can email me off of fightforme.

net. There's an email there. You can get a hold of me. Um, and, and do something about this. Do something, guys. Something. [00:48:00] You must. How's that? I'll get me, get me fired up here, Brent.

David Dowlen: Guys. Would that be better tomorrow? Because what you do today, we'll see on the next one.

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