We have no backup plan.

We’ve often shared our founder’s quote: 

At its core, that tireless, focused, relentless drive to rescue is born out of love. When Tony sees an exploited child suffering beneath the oppression of her abusers, he sees a daughter. And he’s not alone.

All over the world, caseworkers and rescue agents reach into the darkness to offer exploited children help. Sometimes that darkness is an impoverished slum or seedy brothel. Sometimes the darkness is internal, created by the long shadows of emotional walls built to protect a shattered heart. It’s led to innovations and adaptations that have forged Destiny Rescue (an organisation whose rescue work in Cambodia, Thailand and the Philippines Child Rescue helps fund) into one of the most relentless, child-centred rescue organisations in the world.

Tony recently spoke about the early days of Destiny Rescue and, perhaps inadvertently, revealed what sits at the heart of this overwhelming passion and our relentless pursuit of rescue.

Traumatised

Years of experience taught Destiny Rescue agents that patience was paramount in building trust with trafficking victims. 

The first time Tony saw Oriana, the 15-year-old was working at a bar that doubled as a brothel. Tony was undercover, playing the part of a Western customer while he searched the miserable bar-brothel combination for exploited children, respectful and kind the whole time. He didn’t get handsy with her or treat her like a product. 

Tony learned her mother had sent Oriana to work when she was just 12 years old. She was expected to send money home regularly as a way to contribute to the family’s needs.

As Tony made his way to the brothel for a third time, he was hopeful that this would be the night that Oriana would accept freedom. 

He took a seat and noticed Oriana on the opposite side of the bar, sitting with another customer. But something was off about her gaze; her expression seemed disconnected: “She had this numb, glazed-over look in her eye.” 

That’s when Tony realised that the other man was actively abusing her right there in the bar. 

Tony quickly called over a server and demanded that Oriana be brought to him. 

The ruse worked: bar staff removed Oriana from the other client’s table and brought her to Tony. But though the physical abuse had ceased, the trauma of the event lingered with the child. “It took a little while to get through to her… that night,” Tony said.

When he was finally able to communicate with her, Tony told Oriana that they could go somewhere safe. She accepted and left with Tony, joining the residential home Destiny Rescue operated in Thailand at that time. For the first time in years, Oriana was safe.

Unfortunately, that was only the beginning of Oriana’s journey. According to Tony, there was still one major barrier standing between Oriana and freedom.

Rescued again… and again

“(Her) mother wasn’t happy,” Tony said, explaining that Oriana herself had gained freedom, but her mother had lost a major source of income.

While Destiny Rescue staff worked tirelessly to help Oriana recover from all she’d been through, her mother called her on the phone incessantly, pressuring her to return to sex work. Torn between what she needed and what she felt was expected of her, Oriana often snuck away from their residential home to return to the brothels.

“I couldn’t tell you how many times she disappeared,” Tony said. 

But no matter how many times she’d vanish from the home, the team would find and rescue her again from another bar days or weeks later.  

Oriana’s tragic cycle continued until Tony sat down with the child to have a heart-to-heart: “I remember sitting down with her and saying, ‘I know you don’t know your dad, and I know I’m not your dad, but I love you like you’re my daughter.’”

That simple but ardent statement had a profound effect on young Oriana. For so long, she’d been handled like nothing more than a product for sale. Her own mother treated her like a cash cow, just a means to make more money.

For once in her life, someone valued her, not for what she could do for them, but for who she was as a person. Tony hugged the little girl just like he would his own child, and, in his words, the two “had a good ol’ cry.”

Oriana never ran away again after that. 

Oriana is a free, grown woman now. She and Tony kept in touch for a while afterward, and Tony was fortunate enough to see what her rescue made possible: “She’s married, and she’s got a little daughter of her own.”

Do you share our passion for helping hurting kids? If you want to make a difference in a child’s life no matter what specific challenges they face, please consider making a donation by filling out the form below.