Deputy Mayor Pro Tem Gay Donnell Willis, Jacob Geary, Angela Thorne and Chad Frymire
The Champion of Freedom Award was presented Monday to Allies Against Slavery by the North Texas Coalition Against Human Trafficking (NTCAHT). A luncheon hosted by Deputy Mayor Pro Tem Gay Donnell Willis was held inside the Flag Room at Dallas City Hall to celebrate the honor. Attendees wore royal blue in recognition of Human Trafficking Awareness Month.
Allies Against Slavery isn’t a shelter or a jobs program or a rehab center — it’s an innovative, map-driven and data-driven resource to help frontline professionals identify, confront and prevent exploitation.
“For over a decade, Allies has been an incredible partner, not only here in North Texas, but across the state, harnessing data for children, mostly through their Lighthouse platform,” praised Chad Frymire, director of public policy for Dallas CASA and board chair for NTCAHT. “Their CSE-IT tool is a predictive tool that helps us identify child sex tracking victims. They also provide support with policy recommendations in Austin and with U.S. legislators. They really focus on empowering prevention and helping with prosecution.”
Gay Donnell Willis with honoree John Nehme of Allies Against Slavery
John Nehme, CEO of Allies Against Slavery, accepted the award.
“We harness data to illuminate and ultimately eradicate human trafficking,” he explained. “We envision a future where every community in the country would have all the data that it needs to not just combat this problem but ultimately prevent it to move upstream and to stop exploitation before it starts.”
Nehme said he’s seen many victims of trafficking who exhibited clear signs of abuse during interactions with school counselors, medical professionals, foster parents and juvenile justice personnel, but flashing red warning signs were missed or ignored. Repeatedly, the young people were sent back into the hands of their traffickers, and the chances of rescuing them were lost.
“One young woman walked into an ER in a major hospital in Texas six times,” he said. “Each time she walked in, her acute needs were cared for, but no one connected the dots that her injuries were suffered at the hands of her trafficker and her buyers. So, she walked back out the door without that lifeline that could help her exploitation. As a result, she was exploited again and again.”
“Human trafficking is a complex and deeply challenging issue,” agreed Willis. “It doesn’t sit neatly in one lane. It intersects with public safety and housing and health and economic insecurity and trauma, and it demands coordination and trust and persistence. No single agency or organization can tackle it alone, and that’s why elevating attention around all forms of trafficking matters.”
Council member Kathy Stewart, Dr. Brita Andercheck, DPD Sgt. Alan Holmes and DPD’s Jackie Laymance
Willis had high praise for a new program developed by the City of Dallas Data Analytics and Business Intelligence Unit in tandem with the Dallas Police Department. The daily, automated update informs detectives about high-risk potential victims: children who are currently missing, under the age of twelve, have run away more than four times in the last year, have a prior case of exploitation and/or have been missing for 30 days or more. The result has been an astounding 50% reduction in currently missing and/or runaway juvenile victims.
“I was floored when I heard about their work on real, meaningful disruption that can keep a course of a life from being changed and derailed,” Willis said.
“Since the dashboard has launched, my guys can lock in and see a currently missing child, and they can go out and try to find them right away,” explained DPD Sergeant Alan Holmes. “It’s been absolute game changer for my team to be able to go out and recover these children, hopefully before they’re exploited.”
“We don’t want to use data to just admire the problem with statistics,” said Dr. Brita Andercheck, who developed the dashboard. “We want to use data to create an actionable insight. Sergeant Holmes says we’ve done just that.”
Perhaps the most powerful moment of the ceremony happened when Angela Thorne rose to speak. She’s a victim of sex trafficking and the author of “Unbroken: A Survivor’s Story.”
Thorne was raised in a loving home, daughter of a high-ranking police officer and an attentive stay-at-home mom. After she was sexually abused at age seven and her parents got divorced when she was ten, she became vulnerable — and predators caught her in their web.
“I fell into the cracks of my family’s fractures, and the ones who saw me were skilled predators,” she shared. “By the age of 15, I was a functioning alcoholic, a full-blown cocaine addict, an active cutter, and I had attempted suicide once before. I was screaming with every red flag known to man that something was very, very wrong. But no one had eyes to see. The ones who did saw me as a commodity.”
Thorne is now managing director of Freed People, a nonprofit which sends networks of recovery teams out into the most heavily trafficked areas to support both law enforcement and survivors.
“Almost 13 years later, by the grace of God, the path was paved, and I had the wonderful pleasure of meeting so many in this room along the way,” she said. “I truly believe that all of the awful things I walked through led me to be in the position I’m in today. I feel it is a true reflection of the scripture that says, ‘God will take everything the enemy aims to destroy me and turn it for good.’ What once attempted to steal my life is something now I get to crush under my heel every single day. What an honor.”
Carmen Shelton of Freed People, DPD’s Megan Sykes and DPD’s Chen Yuan
Mark and Terri Demler of Project Moses, Vanessa Barker and Priya Murphy of New Friends, New Life