FREE
anti-sex trafficking initiative
Globally, an estimated 4.7 million persons are caught in sex trafficking today. Approximately 250,000–350,000 American children and youth are at risk for sex trafficking each year.
People who have been marginalized are also being deemed disposable and thus usable for the demoralizing purposes of those with power and privilege. The exploitation of those targeted through sex trafficking continues to attack the Imago Dei; marring, and harming trafficking victims, the traffickers, and the communities where economies of sexual exploitation flourish.
The Covenant’s core identity as Mission Friends is rooted in its desire to respond to God’s call in Isaiah 1:17, “Learn to do good, seek justice, and encourage the oppressed” in our world. As a response to this call, Serve Globally and Love Mercy Do Justice are collaborating through FREE, an anti-sex trafficking initiative of the Evangelical Covenant Church that calls the global church to Pray, Learn, Give, and Act to oppose the evil of sex trafficking both domestically and globally.
Pray
Join us as we pray with hope for God to transform our unjust and broken world. We join in prayer for God’s shalom to move us into action as Spirit-empowered servants of Jesus to reflect God’s kingdom of peace, justice, and freedom across cultures and around the world. Below are various prayer resources that will draw you closer to the cross and instill hope as you pray alongside our courageous and resilient survivors, partners, and advocates.
Week of Prayer
The gift of God’s amazing grace is boundless, both in its beauty and its many dimensions. In our 2022 Week of Prayer guide, our courageous and resilient survivors inspire us to freshly encounter and receive God’s grace.
Lenten Prayer Guide
Six weeks of reflections written by people engaged in the ministry of anti-sex trafficking. We invite you to use these reflections as part of your weekly Lenten discipline to be reminded of God’s grace and love for all of the world that unites and liberates us together.
Communion Liturgy
We invite you and your church to participate in the sacrament of communion as a reminder of the sacrifice of Jesus for our freedom and how our liberation is tied to the freedom of others. Order communion wafers made lovingly by our survivor sisters in India as a way to sustain themselves and gain economic freedom.
Free Sunday Litany
Download the prayer litany to use on FREE Sunday. This litany is partially adapted from a compilation of prayers from survivor leaders and advocates of our domestic partner Thistle Farms. Join us in praying for God to transform our broken world.
Learn to identify signs of trafficking and ways to have conversations for prevention.
Learn
Learning is a crucial component in breaking the cycle of trafficking by addressing sexual violence. Our awareness moves us into action thus helping us live out our Christian witness in the broken world. Below are resources to help individuals and churches go deeper in their discipleship and live missionally by learning and engaging in the conversation of anti-sex trafficking.
Engage Training
A 1.5-day training event that equips church members to live missionally by engaging injustice, learning, and moving toward action. Email us to sign up for training or learn more.
Pendo’s Power
A children’s book that empowers children to protect themselves and their friends by equipping them to navigate potential dangers. The book helps parents and their children have conversations about very sensitive subjects such as consent, body boundaries, and sexual abuse in a very child-friendly, appropriate, fun way.
Advocacy for Victims of Abuse Online Training
This is a self-paced training on abuse for clergy, spiritual leaders, teachers, and anti-abuse advocates. The purpose of this training is to provide clergy and other leaders with information on issues of intimate partner violence, teen dating violence, and childhood sexual assault. Furthermore, it offers foundational knowledge about trauma, healing, and a theology of abuse.
Give to invest in the care and rehabilitation of trafficked children and adults for a brighter future.
Give
Partner with us in breaking the cycle of sex trafficking and creating safer, holistic communities locally and globally. With your gift, you are joining the transformative work of The Evangelical Covenant Church and our partners in loving and serving alongside the vulnerable which is reflective of God’s Kingdom.
Give Online
Thank you for supporting this initiative. May you experience transformation as you engage with this work that is a reminder of our liberation being tied to the liberation of others.
More Ways to Give
FREE is an initiative of the Evangelical Covenant Church, a registered religious nonprofit organization with IRS 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status in the USA. Contributions to the initiative are tax-deductible to the extent that the law allows. You can mail checks to PO Box 773420, Chicago, IL 60677-3420, or call 773-784-3000 to discuss gift matching or donating with stocks.
Purchase Products
Browse products made lovingly by survivors as a way to sustain themselves and have economic freedom.
Our Partners
As co-workers entrusted with the mission of God, we share a commitment to complement the work of our global and domestic partners in seeking to fulfill the common goal and objective of opposing the evil of sex trafficking and effectively serving those impacted by the perils of sex trafficking, abuse of power, poverty and injustice around the world.
Act through advocacy with survivors to pursue God’s shalom for our communities.
Act
Advocate alongside survivors to bring changes in systems that marginalize people and pursue God’s shalom for our communities.
Advocacy Summit
Play a role in advocating for new legislation that will protect women and children from violence at Capitol Hill. The Summit occurs in October every year.
EARN IT Act
The Eliminating Abusive and Rampant Neglect of Interactive Technologies Act is a bipartisan bill that would incentivize companies to create a safer online environment and help bring an end to online sexual exploitation of children.
Host a Free Sunday
FREE Sunday is a powerful opportunity to engage your church in the fight against sex trafficking. Host a FREE Sunday to learn about this great injustice happening in your own neighborhood and around the world; how our partners are responding domestically and globally; and how you can help break the cycle.
Need Help?
National Human Trafficking Hotline United States: 888- 373-7888 SMS: 233733 (Text “HELP” or “INFO”)
Looking for support? Please contact us at 773-784-3000 or free@covchurch.org
Our partners are working on comprehensive anti-sex trafficking efforts, focusing on prevention, intervention, and rehabilitation.
Partners
Our global and domestic partners are engaged in holistic and transformative work of anti-sex trafficking through prevention, intervention, and rehabilitation that seeks to support survivors and break the supply and demand cycle. Alongside our partners, we hope to mobilize individuals and local churches to strengthen the movement through the power of networking, education, awareness, support, and activism. We invite you to join us so that together we might see a collective movement toward opposing this evil.
Freely in Hope
Kenya
Freely in Hope equips survivors and advocates to lead in ending the cycle of sexual violence. Freely in Hope provides a holistic education, leadership development, and storytelling platforms that allow survivors to lead through their rewritten stories. Throughout our community-based programs, sex trafficking prevention is a core component as we serve women who are survivors of sexual violence, women in prostitution, and girls who are most vulnerable to all forms of sexual violence, including human trafficking.
Priceless Alaska
Anchorage, Alaska
Priceless Alaska is first and foremost a mentorship program. Mentors are the heart and soul of Priceless and have proven the effectiveness of community and relationship for hope and healing. Priceless works with survivors who are currently being trafficked or have been trafficked within the past five years. Faith communities are trained to be mentors to survivors of commercial sex-trafficking. This mentorship ministry mostly takes place in Alaska but the Engage training can be offered to other communities as well.
Naomi’s House
Chicago, Illinois
Naomi’s House (NH) operates several programs including a residential care facility with a 15-month program for trafficked women survivors over the age of 18. NH programs are comprehensive services offering hope and healing to women who have suffered from commercial sexual exploitation. Naomi’s House exists because every woman who has suffered from sexual exploitation deserves a new start. NH programs are: Faith-based and rooted in the Gospel of Jesus Christ; Trauma-informed and integrated with expert therapists and staff; Committed to her full healing, believing she is the best advocate for her own care.
New Day for Children
Alamo, California
New Day for Children provides intake services and placement coordination for sex trafficked girls under 18 years of age. New Day for Children places girls in partner residential facilities and boarding schools that offer educational opportunities. They offer case management services to ensure the girls get the holistic care they need. They financially support ancillary services like art therapy, horse therapy, surgery, tutoring, travel for parental/family visitation, as well as other well-rounded care needs.
Amirah, Inc.
Boston, Massachusetts
Amirah, Inc. exists to provide a refuge for those seeking to break free from exploitation and heal in community on their journey toward lasting hope. Amirah does this work through long-term residential programs, survivor-led outreach programs, and educational/training programs. Our hope for the women who participate in our programs is that they would develop the skills they need in a supportive community environment to find liberation, remain independent, and accomplish the goals she sets for herself.
Thistle Farms
Nashville, Tennessee
Thistle Farms operates a 2-year residential recovery facility for sex trafficking survivors. A large component of their holistic healing program is the social justice enterprise that gives the women opportunity to reap economic justice, be employed, and sustain themselves financially. Thistle Farms also facilitates trainings that teach others their model for residential care for traumatized, sex-trafficked women, so the model can be replicated in other locales. While their main facility is located in Tennessee, they have sister facilities in 29 states, Canada, Belize, New Zealand, and Hawaii.
Hindustani Covenant Church
India
Hindustani Covenant Church/ Covenant Social Services (HCC/CSS). Inspired by the life of Christ, HCC/CSS envisages a society where people participate in their own empowerment towards a transformed life. In its efforts to combat sex trafficking, they provide holistic services to bring communal transformation by addressing poverty and providing education to prevent victimization of women and children, services for intervention, rehabilitation, and economic empowerment opportunities for survivors.
El Pozo de Vida
Mexico
El Pozo de Vida is a nonprofit organization that fights against human trafficking and exploitation in Mexico and throughout the Latin American region. We work with a holistic, strategic model that focuses on three main areas: Prevention, Intervention, and Restoration of families, children, women, communities, and other populations that are vulnerable to the crime of human trafficking so that they can experience freedom, new opportunities, and a fresh start in life.
International Justice Mission
Cyber Sex-Trafficking
Partnering in the area of ending Online Sexual Exploitation of Children (OSEC) International Justice Mission is a global organization that protects the poor from violence throughout the developing world. We partner with local authorities to rescue victims of violence, bring criminals to justice, restore survivors, and strengthen justice systems.
Contact US
Free is an anti-sex trafficking initiative of the Evangelical Covenant Church that calls people to pray, learn, give, and act. Questions? Email us at free@covchurch.org
