Latest / Voices for Voices® / How Kim Kelley Turned Trauma Into A Mission To Expose And Disrupt Child Trafficking | Ep 388
Transcript
- 0:02Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Hey everyone, it's Justin here, Voices for Voices.
- 0:06Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Thank you so much for joining us on this episode of the show.
- 0:10Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Uh and for all the viewers and listeners across a hundred countries and territories in a thousand cities across the world.
- 0:19Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: We're grateful for you tuning in, whether this is your first episode or you've been with us the entire way over the 380 plus episodes on our way to 400 total by the end of calendar 2025.
- 0:38Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: We have a jam-packed uh show here, so I am just gonna get into an introduction of our guest.
- 0:49Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Uh our guest is Kim Kelley, and I'm gonna start kind of from uh a little bit from the bottom because it ties in to Voices for Voices.
- 0:58Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Uh so uh quote from uh Kim's uh Digital DefendersUnited.org site says, quote, join Kim as she continues to light up the darkness, be a Voice for the voiceless, and drive the movement to end child exploitation.
- 1:21Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And that is right up our alley with what we are aiming to do with uh Voices for Voices.
- 1:32Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Now a little bit more about Kim.
- 1:34Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: She is a nationally, and I'm pulling this from her CV, her resume.
- 1:42Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Uh Kim is a nationally recognized advocate for child safety, survivor of two decades of child trafficking and cult abuse, and a trusted consultant to law enforcement.
- 1:58Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: She was born into the notorious Children of God cult in Brazil, where her parents held senior leadership roles.
- 2:07Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Kim endured systemic abuse and trafficking across Brazil, Mexico, and the United States.
- 2:16Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: After escaping at age 20, she rebuilt her life as a serial entrepreneur, founding businesses in digital marketing, sports apparel, and wellness.
- 2:29Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And so I would like to uh give a big welcome to Kim Kelley for joining us today.
- 2:37Kim Kelley: I really appreciate you having me, and I really appreciate you platforming this message for other survivors.
- 2:43Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Yeah, and that's really uh you're you're welcome.
- 2:45Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: I didn't mean to downplay it.
- 2:47Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: I was thinking of the first question um how this was kind of leading into it.
- 2:52Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: So uh some people are uh I don't want to say like introduced to a call one way or another, but your story is different.
- 3:04Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: You were born into uh the call.
- 3:07Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Can you just explain a little bit about that and and when you started to recognize things and uh just that beginning of that that story of realizing that you're you're kind of born into something that wasn't too good?
- 3:24Kim Kelley: Yeah, for sure.
- 3:25Kim Kelley: I can try to oversimplify that.
- 3:26Kim Kelley: And I'm not expecting most people to relate, right?
- 3:29Kim Kelley: I also like for the sake of a disclaimer, this is not a typical story.
- 3:33Kim Kelley: This is not, you know, a healing journey I would wish on anyone.
- 3:37Kim Kelley: That being said, I'm very happy with the choice I've made to heal and to release that trauma from the memories, right?
- 3:44Kim Kelley: But more importantly, to me, fighting back is the biggest kind of retribution that I personally, you know, that lights me up in terms of healing and fighting back and getting to do what I do today and reclaiming my present and my future.
- 3:58Kim Kelley: So my past is that I was born into and raised in.
- 4:01Kim Kelley: It's one of the most notoriously abusive cults in the world.
- 4:04Kim Kelley: I know that's kind of a little hook, but it's true.
- 4:06Kim Kelley: Anyone who studied cults, which I'm not asking you to do, there's a list of like top five to ten most notorious, or we could say most impactful in terms of the massive impact that it had around the world, the amount of people involved and affected by it, as well as the severity of abuse.
- 4:23Kim Kelley: So just to kind of set the premise here, you know, it started in the late 60s as the children of God out of Huntington Beach, California.
- 4:30Kim Kelley: There was like this hippie movement, you know, free love and drugs and whatever.
- 4:33Kim Kelley: And then a lot of people found Jesus and yay, Jesus saved me, right?
- 4:36Kim Kelley: Now, when vulnerable people are seeking community, that can make them very vulnerable to predatory people that want to control people.
- 4:44Kim Kelley: All right.
- 4:45Kim Kelley: So there's nothing wrong with being vulnerable.
- 4:46Kim Kelley: It's just that we have to realize that can be the perfect candidate for a controlling person, a narcissistic person who wants to control people or seeking power, profits, whatever it may be, to capitalize on that.
- 4:59Kim Kelley: So in the late 60s, a bunch of let's pretend well-meaning hippies that were seeking truth and community, right?
- 5:05Kim Kelley: They joined this Jesus movement, which began as quite a puritanical type of, um, let's call it a group.
- 5:12Kim Kelley: A cult would fit, but sure at the time, you know, they were winning the world for Jesus, and it was like an apocalyptic cult with end of the world coming soon, so we have to save everybody, et cetera.
- 5:20Kim Kelley: All right.
- 5:21Kim Kelley: That being said, um, at a certain point things morphed, and this is way before I was born, obviously, certain point things morphed into what many academics would call a sex cult.
- 5:31Kim Kelley: So at the time, you know, there was adults, and then all kinds of things started happening.
- 5:34Kim Kelley: I'm speeding up the story, but I'm providing some context, right?
- 5:38Kim Kelley: One of the most notorious things, and you can Google all of this, right?
- 5:41Kim Kelley: There was a practice called flirting fish, flirty fishing, which was adults at the time.
- 5:46Kim Kelley: Again, we're talking like 70s and into the 80s, where they were literally prostituting themselves to tell people about Jesus and of course collect donations.
- 5:53Kim Kelley: But that was a big part of how they recruited people for their cult.
- 5:57Kim Kelley: Okay, so abuse was not called abuse.
- 6:01Kim Kelley: It was called God's love.
- 6:02Kim Kelley: Realize that 100% of this practice was done in the name of specifically Jesus, right?
- 6:08Kim Kelley: All that to say, speeding this up, still, lots more we could add for context.
- 6:12Kim Kelley: And as you could, another piece important piece of information, this began in the USA, this expanded internationally.
- 6:19Kim Kelley: So fast forward 20 years, maybe they were in almost every country around the world.
- 6:24Kim Kelley: All right.
- 6:25Kim Kelley: So we're talking about multiple governments, and just, you know, we'll get back to that corruption.
- 6:29Kim Kelley: So that being said, I was born in 1989.
- 6:33Kim Kelley: So by the time I was born, fast forward, um, a lot of people had escaped the cult.
- 6:39Kim Kelley: There was some negative publicity, people had told local authorities or their family members, and there are two reasons that I did not suffer worse abuse in my lifetime.
- 6:49Kim Kelley: I just had the luck of being born last in my sibling lineup.
- 6:52Kim Kelley: It had nothing to do with me being the youngest.
- 6:54Kim Kelley: It's just that my older siblings, who were born in the 70s, experienced the most unfathomable abuse because they were part of the experimental era, or when the cult was allowed to operate unhinged without oversight, when before the negative publicity, they had no accountability or checks and balances.
- 7:15Kim Kelley: And the leader thought it was God's love to introduce very inappropriate, harmful abuse to children.
- 7:22Kim Kelley: Now, again, speeding up a whole lot here, I understand this is not an easy story for people to hear.
- 7:27Kim Kelley: That being said, another quick disclaimer: my chosen form of healing is to laugh and smile.
- 7:32Kim Kelley: I believe that's a very healthy release, right?
- 7:35Kim Kelley: That's not an ideal situation.
- 7:37Kim Kelley: That's just what happened to me.
- 7:38Kim Kelley: That being said, if I laugh and smile about really dark things, it's my disclaimer, not my apology.
- 7:42Kim Kelley: That is the biggest middle finger I can give to my abusers is to laugh.
- 7:45Kim Kelley: That's being said.
- 7:46Kim Kelley: All right.
- 7:46Kim Kelley: So around the time I was born, there was actually a series of international raids where local authorities stormed several compounds around the world and speeding it up, but they arrested the adults.
- 8:00Kim Kelley: They took the children into institutions and our story should have ended there, right?
- 8:06Kim Kelley: Because you would have seen headlines about, you know, cults raided, children rescued.
- 8:11Kim Kelley: I'm gonna speed up the story, but again, you can look up the court documents and all the public records and just understand what that should have been and what really happened instead.
- 8:21Kim Kelley: So after two short years, there was an international court case out of the UK, Lord Justice Wallace decided to acquit the entire group.
- 8:28Kim Kelley: Despite 180-something pages that you can read, all the evidence and names and experts and people saying this is not safe for kids, they decided never mind, go home, everything's fine.
- 8:38Kim Kelley: So all the adults, not one person was charged or convicted.
- 8:43Kim Kelley: The children were returned.
- 8:45Kim Kelley: So our stories did not end there.
- 8:48Kim Kelley: Now, I'm gonna unpack a little bit more about this story because it does set the premise for a lot of the rest of the story as well as why I'm doing what I'm doing today.
- 8:56Kim Kelley: Lots to learn from this story, right?
- 8:58Kim Kelley: Just because you see headlines saying children are rescued does not mean children are safe.
- 9:03Kim Kelley: Now, unfortunately, some of those children that were taken to institutions, often in third world countries, experienced even worse abuse.
- 9:12Kim Kelley: In fact, some babies didn't make it.
- 9:15Kim Kelley: That being said, I'm gonna draw out another important part of this story.
- 9:22Kim Kelley: The reason I do what I do today, which I'll explain how I fight back and why.
- 9:26Kim Kelley: And why me, because it really should be everyone else who's getting paid to do this job.
- 9:30Kim Kelley: However, awareness, right?
- 9:32Kim Kelley: You hear a lot of nonprofits and that word being thrown around as if it's powerful, and it can be, right?
- 9:38Kim Kelley: Not if we're just here to talk about it and pretend like thoughts and prayers are gonna make things go away, right?
- 9:43Kim Kelley: Awareness in my in this realm of combating child exploitation and trafficking, awareness reduces the predator's ability to operate.
- 9:53Kim Kelley: It makes it harder for bad guys to get away with doing bad things in this context to children when good people are aware and are second, you know, step one, awareness, step two, then willing to take action.
- 10:05Kim Kelley: Because knowing about it, being scared of it, standing in the corner being scared of the dark, right?
- 10:10Kim Kelley: No, no, no.
- 10:10Kim Kelley: The point is to what?
- 10:12Kim Kelley: Turn on the lights.
- 10:13Kim Kelley: All right.
- 10:14Kim Kelley: So back to this story.
- 10:16Kim Kelley: Uh I think it was like 92, 93, the international court case, everyone's acquitted, never mind, go home.
- 10:21Kim Kelley: But what it did do, well, here's what it didn't do.
- 10:24Kim Kelley: It didn't rescue any children.
- 10:25Kim Kelley: It didn't result in any of us like requiring an education or medical care or like the general things that most people would relate to about a childhood.
- 10:33Kim Kelley: No, no, no.
- 10:34Kim Kelley: No.
- 10:34Kim Kelley: But what it did do is it reduced the predator's ability to operate.
- 10:38Kim Kelley: So it forced the cult to pretend to be less abusive.
- 10:43Kim Kelley: So they did implement this charter book, this book of rules that implemented like age minimums for bad things, so that we, in my like generation, experienced less bad things.
- 10:55Kim Kelley: I was born in a very unique kind of time period because I still experienced, I was still raised in compounds with like 150 people for contact.
- 11:02Kim Kelley: Like, anyway, whole lots of details I could tell about my story, lots of, lots of dark humor here, unfortunately.
- 11:07Kim Kelley: The point is that I was kind of at the end of that, you know, massive compound communal living style era where a lot of things went unchecked, but also um a lot of bad things were highly encouraged.
- 11:21Kim Kelley: When I was very young, those bad things were then sort of, oh, let's pretend we, you know, the narrative, just for people to understand the brainwashing, was like, you know, the Lord wants this, Jesus thinks this is what's best, and we're special, so we get to do these special things, but the public isn't ready for it, they can't handle it, they don't love Jesus like we love Jesus, so we can't tell, right?
- 11:40Kim Kelley: So again, there's this whole facade.
- 11:42Kim Kelley: Now I can get much more into the psychology of cults and the outer public layer, which is much like a corporate brochure versus the insider information.
- 11:51Kim Kelley: I'm gonna add another very important piece of context to this story.
- 11:55Kim Kelley: Like you said in my introduction, my mother decided to work her way up into a position of power within this cult.
- 12:02Kim Kelley: Okay, I'm born in 89, I have siblings way before me.
- 12:06Kim Kelley: My mother, who by the way, was like born and raised in Texas, she was a Dallas Cowboy cheerleader.
- 12:10Kim Kelley: She was born and raised to a rather wealthy Texas family out of Dallas area.
- 12:14Kim Kelley: All right, so that was her childhood.
- 12:16Kim Kelley: And then, you know, I'm sure everybody experiences hard things, but otherwise, you know, she's in UT, full ride, and then decides to join a cult and do a kooky thing with her life.
- 12:26Kim Kelley: All right, I can leave space for the fact that this is a free country.
- 12:29Kim Kelley: And if you want to go do something kooky with your life, like, bro, free country.
- 12:32Kim Kelley: Here's the line in the cement that doesn't exist and needs to.
- 12:36Kim Kelley: All right.
- 12:36Kim Kelley: You can't bring kids into it.
- 12:38Kim Kelley: Ready?
- 12:39Kim Kelley: You can go have orgies in the forest, that's fine.
- 12:41Kim Kelley: You can't bring kids into it.
- 12:42Kim Kelley: You can go into strip clubs, that's fine.
- 12:44Kim Kelley: You can't bring kids into it.
- 12:45Kim Kelley: You can raise your, you know, you can live your life like anyway, all these weird things.
- 12:49Kim Kelley: You can't bring kids into it.
- 12:51Kim Kelley: Specifically when we're talking about these controlled environments that don't allow access to the outside world.
- 12:58Kim Kelley: Let me oversimplify that because I understand that is a crazy concept.
- 13:02Kim Kelley: All right.
- 13:02Kim Kelley: The analogy I use, it's like being born and raised under a rock, and you're told from day one that red is blue.
- 13:09Kim Kelley: And every book you're allowed to read, every picture on the wall, every music, every song, everything that people say, every single adult and person in your entire existence reinforces this belief that red is blue.
- 13:20Kim Kelley: So you grew up as a child, that's your normal, right?
- 13:24Kim Kelley: Now, if you have an extensive mind like me, at a certain point you'll start asking questions and calling people out on their bullshit in little tiny ways, right?
- 13:30Kim Kelley: One of the main, like, let's call it laws of every cult, like questions are certainly not encouraged.
- 13:35Kim Kelley: They're certainly faced with a lot of gaslighting and take it by faith type, you know, death just because Jesus says so type thing.
- 13:42Kim Kelley: But when you're really pushing for logic, you're told you can't ask questions.
- 13:46Kim Kelley: You're even punished.
- 13:46Kim Kelley: You're not only shamed and, you know, humiliated, you're you're punished.
- 13:50Kim Kelley: Oversimplified here.
- 13:52Kim Kelley: Okay, so that's how it was growing up.
- 13:54Kim Kelley: Now, lots more to unpack from my childhood, unfortunately.
- 13:58Kim Kelley: But just because you asked in the beginning, you know, when did I start notice things ain't quite right here, right?
- 14:03Kim Kelley: Now, again, thank God for my dark humor, man.
- 14:06Kim Kelley: But, you know, unfortunately, from a really young age, I had to learn to navigate people, to read patterns, to understand, you know, not if someone is harmful, but like just realize how harmful right now to me in this in this room.
- 14:18Kim Kelley: You know what I mean?
- 14:18Kim Kelley: Like, what exactly is gonna go on every day?
- 14:21Kim Kelley: And whole other thing, I wasn't raised by my mom.
- 14:23Kim Kelley: Dark humor, thank God.
- 14:25Kim Kelley: But she was like off being a leader.
- 14:27Kim Kelley: That's a whole other story.
- 14:28Kim Kelley: Anyway, but you know, I was raised by, raised, whatever, all these random people, and everybody's a family and nobody has, you know, autonomy or individuality.
- 14:36Kim Kelley: So just go with it, right?
- 14:38Kim Kelley: That environment certainly doesn't foster critical thinking, much less checks and balances, right?
- 14:44Kim Kelley: Much less when I and my, you know, my siblings and very few other people who were born and raised in this cult had the insight of being raised in leadership realms.
- 14:55Kim Kelley: Now, that's not a flex.
- 14:57Kim Kelley: To be a leader in a cult, you have to be the most crazy.
- 15:00Kim Kelley: Like, you have to earn your place.
- 15:01Kim Kelley: You have to, you have to earn that place.
- 15:04Kim Kelley: Okay, so the children of the leaders, like, look, look, look, sometimes we lived in a better house and and you know, had some food that was less rotten, seriously, but it's not like we had it better.
- 15:14Kim Kelley: It's like the leadership was extra cuckoo bananas, okay.
- 15:18Kim Kelley: Leaving it there.
- 15:20Kim Kelley: My mom, you know, thought it was really cool to work herself up in those ranks.
- 15:24Kim Kelley: You know how they say like they sold their souls for rock and roll.
- 15:26Kim Kelley: Now she like gave her soul to cult rank, anyways, whatever that is.
- 15:31Kim Kelley: So yeah, it was not a safe upbringing.
- 15:34Kim Kelley: You know, you're constantly navigating things.
- 15:35Kim Kelley: And then, you know, additional context here, you're in a completely foreign country, which is how I grew up.
- 15:41Kim Kelley: So I grew up being a foreigner everywhere, but also like being stared at, being, you know, kind of the weirdo everywhere.
- 15:46Kim Kelley: So you also have to like you have to navigate the outside, which from the inside you're told is evil.
- 15:52Kim Kelley: They don't like Jesus and they don't like us and they're dangerous and everybody's sad, and we're the only ones that are happy, yay, God, right?
- 15:58Kim Kelley: Then from the inside, you're being told this is happy, yay, God, and love.
- 16:02Kim Kelley: And it's really abuse, masked as God's love.
- 16:07Kim Kelley: So unpack that.
- 16:09Kim Kelley: Anyway, but thank God for my dark humor.
- 16:12Kim Kelley: You know what I mean?
- 16:13Kim Kelley: From a really young age, unfortunately, I had to navigate like things most adults are not equipped for.
- 16:19Kim Kelley: And it did instill in me this kind of pattern recognition, this human behavior analysis.
- 16:26Kim Kelley: Obviously, I didn't use any of those words at the time, right?
- 16:28Kim Kelley: But then even later in my healing journey, I went through even more of that understanding and all these different deconstructing and then not reconstructing, but constructing truth, right?
- 16:41Kim Kelley: From something you never had.
- 16:42Kim Kelley: So deconstructing this gross manipulation of reality and then asking, what why do I believe this?
- 16:49Kim Kelley: What is truth?
- 16:50Kim Kelley: Okay, I think this is real.
- 16:52Kim Kelley: Why do I believe this?
- 16:53Kim Kelley: I was told that.
- 16:53Kim Kelley: Can I fact check?
- 16:54Kim Kelley: So, so my brain went through the full scientific method of comparing, you know, analyzing truth in summary.
- 17:01Kim Kelley: And again, my mind's pretty wired for that.
- 17:03Kim Kelley: But I was really on this quest, I wasn't searching for answers.
- 17:06Kim Kelley: I'm kind of all over the place here, but all right, when I was at 20 years old, I was in Mexico.
- 17:11Kim Kelley: And I'll talk more about like the process it took, because it wasn't a one-day, you know, decision to leave.
- 17:18Kim Kelley: And for two, it's not like I could just leave at any time.
- 17:21Kim Kelley: Like, where would I have gone?
- 17:22Kim Kelley: Right?
- 17:23Kim Kelley: Take eight-year-old me in Brazil.
- 17:24Kim Kelley: Five-year-old me in Brazil, take 11-year-old me in Mexico.
- 17:28Kim Kelley: Oh no, I was in, I was in Houston from 10 to 14.
- 17:30Kim Kelley: I was in Houston.
- 17:31Kim Kelley: Um, but still, take 11-year-old me in Houston.
- 17:33Kim Kelley: I'm living with my parents.
- 17:34Kim Kelley: Where would I?
- 17:34Kim Kelley: Like, I escape, cops find me, and I'm returned to my parents, right?
- 17:38Kim Kelley: Take 14-year-old, 15-year-old me in Mexico, where would I have gone if I could have physically escaped?
- 17:44Kim Kelley: Like, this is one of many things people don't understand, especially, you know, from talking to a lot of survivors, there's adults that feel trapped.
- 17:52Kim Kelley: And I'm not here to diminish or downplay anyone's experience.
- 17:55Kim Kelley: I am saying the mind can be its own cage.
- 17:58Kim Kelley: So there are adults who are not in physical captivity.
- 18:01Kim Kelley: They may have a car and a cell phone and access to the outside world.
- 18:04Kim Kelley: They may even have friends and families who like are offering them help.
- 18:07Kim Kelley: I can't relate to any of that.
- 18:09Kim Kelley: I'm just saying there are adults who feel trapped in that cage, right?
- 18:13Kim Kelley: And who can't leave, for example, abusive relationships and really difficult situations for a long time.
- 18:18Kim Kelley: Now, translate that to being a kid born and raised under a rock where everyone around you is evil.
- 18:24Kim Kelley: And instead of a support system or a family or any kind of outside access or soft place to land, your family is a net negative in terms of support.
- 18:32Kim Kelley: Like they'd they'd pray against you if you tried to leave.
- 18:36Kim Kelley: You know what I mean?
- 18:37Kim Kelley: So I'm really making light of this for the sake of dark humor, but all that to say, it's not like I could have just left at any time.
- 18:44Kim Kelley: All right.
- 18:45Kim Kelley: That being said, um, it was kind of a process of decisions.
- 18:50Kim Kelley: So uh lots I could speed up here, but you know, I did start asking questions pretty young.
- 18:57Kim Kelley: Like I'm talking nine, ten, I'm I'm asking hard questions.
- 19:00Kim Kelley: And I remember so many moments of adults lying to my face, right?
- 19:04Kim Kelley: And in my mind, I'm just trying to make sense of things.
- 19:06Kim Kelley: Like I'm not even being disrespectful or counteracting the narrative.
- 19:10Kim Kelley: I'm just like, wait, wait, wait.
- 19:11Kim Kelley: So if this happened and this happened, but then that person was there, how did this happen here?
- 19:14Kim Kelley: And they're like, oh, it's because they came back to visit.
- 19:17Kim Kelley: And I was like, okay, okay.
- 19:18Kim Kelley: So my head, I'm like trying to put these things together, you know.
- 19:21Kim Kelley: But I've, you know, at best I get some kind of lie as an answer.
- 19:25Kim Kelley: Generally, it was more just like, because you have to take it by face, you know, this like a whole other thing.
- 19:30Kim Kelley: So um I was 19 years old.
- 19:35Kim Kelley: I'm living in Mexico at the time.
- 19:36Kim Kelley: I'm speeding up the like how I left story because it's it's not that, it's not Hollywood heroic.
- 19:41Kim Kelley: It's more just for people to understand the the deprogramming, right?
- 19:45Kim Kelley: How difficult we know it can be for adults, and we know how effective brainwashing can be on them.
- 19:49Kim Kelley: But just translate that to a child with that with no outside world access, much less advocacy, much less like support, right?
- 19:58Kim Kelley: So, um By the time I'm 19, I'm let's just, you know, speed things up.
- 20:03Kim Kelley: But like I was always a very A-type personality, always like a high achiever, top earner type, right?
- 20:08Kim Kelley: So the this is a pattern of many cults, but basically, like the rules bend if you bring money into it, right?
- 20:14Kim Kelley: So donors who gave lots and lots of money, like, oh, rules don't really apply.
- 20:18Kim Kelley: From the inside, like if you were really contributing and a top earner and making lots of money, like, oh, okay, fine, you can go make money outside.
- 20:25Kim Kelley: Go, you know.
- 20:26Kim Kelley: So it's not like I was gallivanting around with freedom, but I had more independence and I had a lot of trust at this point because like I was very good and I just kept my head down and did good things.
- 20:35Kim Kelley: Now I realize, again, by now, like when I was a kid, things were much different, much more different than that of my siblings, right?
- 20:42Kim Kelley: Fast forward to 19, like this is not maybe what people would think, like, you know, things were much better, I guess is what I'm trying to say.
- 20:50Kim Kelley: There was less bad things by then.
- 20:52Kim Kelley: So it's not like there was daily, you know, trauma.
- 20:55Kim Kelley: Now, yes, of course, there was all kinds of religious trauma and like things people would definitely find, you know, reasons to complain for.
- 21:00Kim Kelley: But I'm just saying, like, it wasn't nearly as bad to put it that way at all by the time I was 19, right?
- 21:05Kim Kelley: So I had a lot more uh independence, you could say.
- 21:08Kim Kelley: All that to say, I started seeing more examples from the outside world.
- 21:11Kim Kelley: And again, just allowing me more access and questioning and the way my brain works, and I just got more information.
- 21:18Kim Kelley: Realized we we didn't have access to the internet still.
- 21:21Kim Kelley: Like this was very limited.
- 21:22Kim Kelley: Okay.
- 21:23Kim Kelley: I remember this one time, though, I was sitting at a dinner, and there was actually friends of mine, and I'm gonna speed this up, but there was someone who, you know, there were, I was 19, everyone was in their 30s, let's say.
- 21:36Kim Kelley: Okay.
- 21:37Kim Kelley: So there were maybe two or three couples that were from this cult that were like high achiever, good people, like, you know, if you were really like the best, you'd be like them, right?
- 21:44Kim Kelley: And then there was this other like person who was not from the cult, and his family owned like a an English school.
- 21:51Kim Kelley: And anyway, he was a successful person that was not from the cult, is my point.
- 21:54Kim Kelley: Okay.
- 21:55Kim Kelley: So I'm sitting there and we have this contrast, right?
- 21:58Kim Kelley: But I'm just listening to the discussion, and these people are like not bragging, but what's the word, testifying about, you know, oh, these wonderful things that we've been doing.
- 22:07Kim Kelley: And I'm like, they're like in their 30s with a bunch of kids, right?
- 22:10Kim Kelley: Living in Mexico, but like selling posters at a gas station, right?
- 22:14Kim Kelley: And they're like, oh, you sell so many posters.
- 22:16Kim Kelley: And ah, and I'm looking over here and I'm like, if I continue, like best case scenario, I'm like them in 10 years, 20 years, which felt like an eternity for me because realized being raised in apocalyptic cult means being raised like you're not going to grow up because Jesus is coming back.
- 22:32Kim Kelley: So we don't need an education.
- 22:33Kim Kelley: You know what I mean?
- 22:34Kim Kelley: That's literally anyway, explains a lot about the overall thought process, I guess.
- 22:40Kim Kelley: So all that to say, that was kind of my big like contrast moment.
- 22:44Kim Kelley: But beyond that, which I really remember, like it was a series of questions and not getting answers, and there was a lot of emotion involved because I literally felt like I was leaving God's highest will because of all the ingrainment, right?
- 22:54Kim Kelley: Um, I really just saw a way out.
- 22:57Kim Kelley: And it's again, it's not not this heroic of a story, but I was in Guadalajara, Mexico, which is about 10 hours south of Monterey.
- 23:04Kim Kelley: Um, I told the place I was staying that I was like gonna go on a trip and come back.
- 23:09Kim Kelley: So I put all my stuff on this bus in Mexico, this overnight bus.
- 23:13Kim Kelley: All my stuff, like two suitcases of my stuff, um, on a bus, took an overnight bus to Monterey, where these friends of mine lived and had offered me a job.
- 23:22Kim Kelley: Like I they offered me a job and I just took it.
- 23:24Kim Kelley: Like I had a place to go.
- 23:25Kim Kelley: That was that was, you know, I had step one and that I'll figure out the rest.
- 23:29Kim Kelley: I literally took an overnight bus, started working the next day, my first like actual job.
- 23:34Kim Kelley: I've worked my whole life, but I'm saying like official job, legitimate job, whatever you want to call that.
- 23:40Kim Kelley: Um, yeah, so I've really just hit the ground running again.
- 23:43Kim Kelley: You know, it's not like there's any support system or figuring out life, or like you don't really exist on paper.
- 23:47Kim Kelley: Now I was still living in Mexico, which was home to me at the time.
- 23:51Kim Kelley: So it was anyway, that there's some positives in kind of being the foreigner everywhere because I don't know, you're like more of an exotic bird, and people ask less specific questions, you could say.
- 24:01Kim Kelley: So it's kind of easy for me to navigate that.
- 24:03Kim Kelley: Um, speeding it up.
- 24:04Kim Kelley: I moved to the US about a year later.
- 24:06Kim Kelley: I had a sister who was living in Texas, so I stayed with her for a few months and then got my own place and just started multiple businesses.
- 24:12Kim Kelley: And like I honestly just hit the ground running.
- 24:14Kim Kelley: I worked hard, which is, you know, ingrained in me, you could say, dark humor, but like I've really strong work ethic.
- 24:19Kim Kelley: Um, yeah, so that was the first getting out of it, right?
- 24:25Kim Kelley: Now we can talk more about this.
- 24:27Kim Kelley: I know I'm kind of painting a broad brush here, but fast forward about 10 years later, it was maybe nine years later, I was running multiple businesses, I was doing really good things, things I'm very proud of.
- 24:38Kim Kelley: And again, like I have all kinds of peers that chose all different kinds of paths or had to survive in different ways.
- 24:43Kim Kelley: And like, I'm glad I never had to do that, right?
- 24:45Kim Kelley: I'm not above having to survive.
- 24:47Kim Kelley: I'm just saying I'm glad I never had to do something that I really didn't, I don't know, feel comfortable with, I guess.
- 24:54Kim Kelley: But I was definitely scrappy.
- 24:55Kim Kelley: Like I was definitely just making it happen out there.
- 24:57Kim Kelley: So fast forward, it's like 2019.
- 25:00Kim Kelley: I had a sports apparel company and we did a bunch of different um awareness campaigns for different good causes, and we donate the proceeds to nonprofits.
- 25:07Kim Kelley: And I'm very skeptical of nonprofits, as everyone should be.
- 25:10Kim Kelley: So I would do a lot to research who we're giving this money to and what they're doing with it to make sure it's a worthy cause.
- 25:15Kim Kelley: So, you know, breast cancer awareness and autism and PTSD and all these really good causes.
- 25:19Kim Kelley: We started working on the cause of the missing and murdered indigenous women at the time.
- 25:24Kim Kelley: It's a whole other thing, but we did a lot in the Native American sector with First Nations, et cetera.
- 25:28Kim Kelley: So this came about, this came into my awareness at that time.
- 25:32Kim Kelley: I'm 29.
- 25:34Kim Kelley: And again, you know, I'm just working, like I had done a lot of personal healing, but again, my wiring is more like I was just, you could definitely say numbing for sure, right?
- 25:43Kim Kelley: Like I had done a lot of healing, but I was more just like overfunctioning, if you will.
- 25:48Kim Kelley: Anyway, this cause of, you know, one in four Native American First Nations women and children are missing, murdered, or bad things.
- 25:56Kim Kelley: And that hit me like, what?
- 26:00Kim Kelley: Like it was the first time I had heard of that, right?
- 26:03Kim Kelley: I had seen so many bad things far, far away.
- 26:05Kim Kelley: I knew what I had escaped, but for context, like no one unless you were rage with me knew this about my past.
- 26:10Kim Kelley: I was just Kim, like, you know, you would never have known this about me.
- 26:14Kim Kelley: There was definitely a lot of shame still because you just kind of want to brush that under the rug, like, oh, that's some weird thing, and the work's gonna hope no one finds that out about me, right?
- 26:22Kim Kelley: That being said, I kind of this 360 moment where I saw this as a pervasive issue today, number one.
- 26:31Kim Kelley: I was like, what the fuck?
- 26:32Kim Kelley: But then I was like, why is no one talking about this?
- 26:34Kim Kelley: Like it lit this hell no moment in me.
- 26:37Kim Kelley: And realized, like, I'm not, I've I've I was never before, you know, associated with First Nations people.
- 26:42Kim Kelley: So it wasn't, it felt personal, but it wasn't like, you know, it didn't have to be that personal to me.
- 26:47Kim Kelley: It just, it was just this hell no moment.
- 26:50Kim Kelley: So again, I'm speeding up that story, but we worked with different people, found out more about that problem, and I understood more about the systemic corruption that supports and protects that type of corruption.
- 27:01Kim Kelley: And to me, to me, it is the darkest form of evil to not only the most cowardly, let's be real, abusing vulnerable people, women and children to that extent, right?
- 27:12Kim Kelley: Definitely the most cowardly form of evil, but it's also the darkest because it takes a lot of, you know, even really bad guys don't cross that line.
- 27:21Kim Kelley: And you gotta be a really different kind of psycho to do that.
- 27:23Kim Kelley: So it just kind of started unraveling for me.
- 27:28Kim Kelley: Fast forward a year later, you know, it expanded, like I saw the even bigger picture about the pervasive issue of child exploitation in general in the United States, the systems that protect it, but then also the on a spectrum of intensity, the way darker stuff that's even like the trafficking of children, which is even more, you know, this whole other realm of things.
- 27:46Kim Kelley: So speeding up the story again, there was one day when I was looking for nonprofits to support.
- 27:51Kim Kelley: Okay.
- 27:51Kim Kelley: I wasn't looking for dark, scary, bad information.
- 27:54Kim Kelley: I wasn't researching bad things.
- 27:56Kim Kelley: I was looking at who's part of the good.
- 27:58Kim Kelley: And unfortunately, that was really hard to find.
- 27:59Kim Kelley: We'll get back to that.
- 28:00Kim Kelley: Very hard to find people that are actually doing what they say in this world of combating exploitation, trafficking.
- 28:05Kim Kelley: A lot of people exploiting that problem.
- 28:08Kim Kelley: Anyway, when I was looking through this information, there was a lot of triggering moments throughout the day, and that's not typical for me, right?
- 28:15Kim Kelley: I'm not afraid of that, but it just wasn't normal to have a lot of emotional reactions, even to the point of crying sometimes.
- 28:21Kim Kelley: And I was like, what is all this?
- 28:23Kim Kelley: So later that night I was unwinding from the day, and I remember this moment so clearly.
- 28:28Kim Kelley: I'm swimming in my pool and I'm just like, you know, unwinding and I'm going through things, and it occurs to me in that moment.
- 28:34Kim Kelley: Like I remember swimming and I like stopped and like stopped, and I was like, oh my God, that's what it was.
- 28:39Kim Kelley: We were trafficked.
- 28:41Kim Kelley: That's when that we obviously we had never used that term, and that term hadn't really been used for humans, you know, in in until more recently.
- 28:50Kim Kelley: It was just not something I had ever put together, but it's like I that's when I realized there was no closure in that, but there was truth.
- 28:58Kim Kelley: There was at least an understanding, right?
- 29:00Kim Kelley: And it just hit me like the again, there's no justifiable reason for why would someone do that to children and then to their own children and then to other children.
- 29:10Kim Kelley: You know, there's no justifiable reason, but it did answer that question, if that makes sense.
- 29:16Kim Kelley: So again, uh, you know, lots to unpack from this story, but abuse is almost never framed as abuse.
- 29:21Kim Kelley: Whether you're a child or an adult, generally the person doing a bad thing, we're talking abuse, we're not talking mistakes or you know, bad choices or a word that we didn't mean to say.
- 29:30Kim Kelley: No, we're talking abuse is never going to be masked as abuse, generally, right?
- 29:38Kim Kelley: Depending on the situation, predators are generally very strategic.
- 29:43Kim Kelley: And again, they target vulnerabilities.
- 29:47Kim Kelley: So I really want to unpack more about the patterns and the psychology, because I get big on that, and that you can probably understand why.
- 29:53Kim Kelley: Um, but just to kind of put a full bow on it, again, I left, you know, I sped up so much as you can imagine.
- 29:58Kim Kelley: But what I do today, um, all right, well, let's back up a little bit.
- 30:02Kim Kelley: So at the time I'm 30 years old, I'm seeking nonprofits that that are actually part of the solution, that are actually doing something helpful, not just like awareness and whatever that means if you're not doing anything, but then also like who's actually doing something meaningful that is tangible, because I really want to like actually support them, right?
- 30:18Kim Kelley: So I started working with a variety of nonprofits.
- 30:21Kim Kelley: I supported, worked with, consulted, volunteered for, etc., lots and lots of different NGOs, non-government organizations or nonprofits for years.
- 30:31Kim Kelley: And again, it was more and more of understanding the problem and the solutions.
- 30:35Kim Kelley: The short version is it's not a one-size-fits-all problem.
- 30:38Kim Kelley: There are not one size fits all solutions.
- 30:40Kim Kelley: There are also a lot of people with bias who are not subject matter experts, who are not trauma-informed, who do not understand the problem.
- 30:47Kim Kelley: There are also a lot of people profiting from these band-aids they're perpetuating that are not solutions.
- 30:53Kim Kelley: There are also a lot of people profiting from all the symptoms that those band-aids.
- 30:56Kim Kelley: All right.
- 30:56Kim Kelley: So you get the point.
- 30:57Kim Kelley: There's a lot of complications and a lot of corruption in this world.
- 31:00Kim Kelley: There's a lot of people living in fear.
- 31:02Kim Kelley: There's a lot of people too cowardly to call it out.
- 31:05Kim Kelley: And, you know, at the beginning, I was really like just trying to get everyone to do their job.
- 31:09Kim Kelley: That was my naive little strategy, is that I could just kind of assist all the people that should be helping because they're very qualified to do so.
- 31:14Kim Kelley: We've got a lot of resources, and this is a stupid problem to have.
- 31:17Kim Kelley: That was literally my, you know, my viewpoint.
- 31:20Kim Kelley: I found out so much, even, you know, beyond what I had experienced in my childhood, just the amount of corruption and people pretending to be part of the solution, all the layers involved.
- 31:32Kim Kelley: So, you know, no one nobody has all the answers, but I do feel like I have a good understanding of this problem and the multiple layers, as well as the solutions that are actually effective in multiple realms because we need layered solutions.
- 31:47Kim Kelley: So I'm talking from the digital realm to the law enforcement training, real-world tactics realm to the policies and lawmakers and why are they making the decisions if they don't understand this problem to how we care for survivors and aftercare and trauma reform informed recovery and lots and lots more.
- 32:03Kim Kelley: So, um, among many things, I founded a nonprofit, not because we need another one, but because I wanted to unite the experts to actually solve problems.
- 32:13Kim Kelley: For the avoidance of doubt, I've never fundraised.
- 32:15Kim Kelley: It's not one of those 501c3s, no one takes a salary, et cetera.
- 32:18Kim Kelley: I do have a really awesome board of advisors.
- 32:20Kim Kelley: Like I work with some incredible people.
- 32:21Kim Kelley: None of this is about performative activism or fundraising, which is most nonprofits.
- 32:26Kim Kelley: It's all about real world solving problems.
- 32:29Kim Kelley: So I also work at the Ranch, Texas.
- 32:32Kim Kelley: It's a tactical training facility.
- 32:33Kim Kelley: It's a it's long story short, man, this place has a lot of history.
- 32:37Kim Kelley: It's in southern Texas.
- 32:38Kim Kelley: It's about an hour north of the border, an hour south of San Antonio.
- 32:42Kim Kelley: Used to be a Blackwater site.
- 32:43Kim Kelley: Lots of all the OGAs and et cetera, lots and lots of really incredible history here.
- 32:50Kim Kelley: That being said, we work with all government agencies, uh, federal, local, state law enforcement, we have a lot of different first responders, as well as all the branches of the military.
- 32:58Kim Kelley: So it's a tactical training facility.
- 33:00Kim Kelley: We also do some programs for civilians.
- 33:03Kim Kelley: But the long story short is it's an honor now to be able to not only train the protectors who should have the training and resources to actually be effective, but also be embedded in a way where I can help them get started and stand up these sting operations and then help that be effective, but then also not be not work for the government in a way where, as a petite smiley female who's also a civilian and doesn't give a fuck, I can walk in and make it very embarrassing for any politician who's in the way, or these nonprofits that are really not doing what they say, but they're collecting millions of dollars, or the well-meaning people that simply don't understand the problem, right?
- 33:40Kim Kelley: So I'm kind of you I'm uniquely positioned.
- 33:43Kim Kelley: I definitely accept that now.
- 33:44Kim Kelley: At the beginning, I was like, why me?
- 33:46Kim Kelley: Now I still laugh about it, but it's, you know, I get it now, and I've fully accepted this mission.
- 33:53Kim Kelley: So that's the summary.
- 33:55Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: That is I mean, it's just incredible.
- 33:58Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: I mean to be able to go from where you were born into all the different I I totally understand the words.
- 34:11Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Like we don't say the word trafficking.
- 34:13Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: We we we don't use these other words.
- 34:16Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: They're we we say, oh we were we went out and watched movies, or we went and did something something that's like, oh well they're just hanging out, and it's like, well, okay, well what's a hanging out look like?
- 34:32Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And then as you dig down into those deeper layers, it's like well there's there's something very, very wrong that is going on.
- 34:43Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And thank you for what you're doing because uh it's it's people like you obviously we need more of in the world, um, and the fact that you're bringing all those kind of components of society together to help because you you were there, so you realized all the different like you said, all the different layers that uh are are there that you can't just stop at.
- 35:15Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Okay, awareness is great, but what are we doing after that?
- 35:20Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Let's let's do some action, not just oh well.
- 35:25Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: This is the hot topic of the day or the year or whatever it's like oh mental health, and so let me jump on that bandwagon.
- 35:35Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And um it's like no shirts aren't saving children, action would yes, yes, and that's that's where we're we're at and trying to get to as an organization, which we do a ton of awareness, and now we're able to by bringing individuals like you on the show, like David on the show, and and many others uh talking about literally being a survivor, and getting out isn't the easiest thing to do.
- 36:11Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: As as you mentioned, all the other layers of being in a different country, and if you were to get out, where would they take you?
- 36:20Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Well, they would take you right back where the abuse was was happening, and uh that's something that I didn't even think of until you brought it up.
- 36:28Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: I was just like, oh well, go find uh you know a safe relative or somebody, and that's not always the case, and especially in uh a different country that has different laws and norms, and uh the the ranch, uh just looking at the the videos, I mean from the tactical indoor part, and then with the the the cars, like the the all parts of that of the the different stink operation pieces, the it's really incredible the uh and I think more people need to know.
- 37:11Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: I mean more people will know after our our shows, obviously, but uh more people need to know that it's it's it's a resource, and you don't have to just be in a certain part of the country to take advantage of these resources.
- 37:27Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Uh a lot of people probably don't even know to even exist.
- 37:31Kim Kelley: Yeah, absolutely.
- 37:32Kim Kelley: So just to explain a little bit more about the ranch, because it, you know, it's not to promo, even though, like, yeah, y'all should come check it out.
- 37:38Kim Kelley: It's more to help people understand the gaps we're filling.
- 37:41Kim Kelley: Because again, a lot of well-meaning, intelligent people in the public are, I think it's intentional that this information is so suppressed, etc., scandalized.
- 37:50Kim Kelley: That's a different topic.
- 37:51Kim Kelley: But a lot of people, you know, you don't know what you don't know.
- 37:53Kim Kelley: So what doesn't okay, let's talk about law enforcement training because a lot of people that are not in this realm, as I was not until recently, right, don't understand law enforcement does not have the training that they should have.
- 38:05Kim Kelley: You would be very uncomfortable if you knew how little they train for the big decisions we want them to make very well when they're under pressure and lives are at stake.
- 38:13Kim Kelley: Like, full stop.
- 38:14Kim Kelley: Law enforcement training in general is a huge gap that if we had better resources and better training, we would have less people suffering.
- 38:22Kim Kelley: That's like the shortest way I can say it.
- 38:24Kim Kelley: And I can defend that for hours if we'd like.
- 38:27Kim Kelley: All right.
- 38:27Kim Kelley: Now, what I knew very clearly after very few years of working, doing some junior undercovered sting ops with law enforcement things is how much they weren't trained to combat child exploitation and trafficking and all these other realms.
- 38:42Kim Kelley: Okay, now let's break that down real quick because there's a lot of, you know, prevention that's needed.
- 38:46Kim Kelley: There's a lot of law, laws that are not, well, okay, I'm never going to take the responsibility away from the elected officials whose job it is to protect and serve.
- 38:54Kim Kelley: So just understand that like the corruption generally comes from top down.
- 38:58Kim Kelley: So when resources are not allocated correctly, when, you know, budgets and training and facilities, all these kinds of things.
- 39:05Kim Kelley: But then when laws are not enforced, when there's corruption at high levels where bad guys don't get prosecuted or good guys look the other way why bad while bad guys do bad things, right?
- 39:15Kim Kelley: I need people to understand that law enforcement is the sharp end of the sword.
- 39:19Kim Kelley: It's the tip of the spear.
- 39:20Kim Kelley: We're talking, let's just talk about local police, you know, because this goes all the way up to like federal agencies, right?
- 39:26Kim Kelley: But like law enforcement, generally speaking, is the sharp end of the sword.
- 39:30Kim Kelley: Now people see the damage that does, and nobody's here to deny that that does all kinds of damage, right?
- 39:35Kim Kelley: However, the person determining the direction and the intensity of the damage is the hand wielding the sword.
- 39:42Kim Kelley: Most people don't even understand who's wielding this sword.
- 39:48Kim Kelley: They don't know all the hands involved or how that works and all the politics and policies that are in the way of progress.
- 39:54Kim Kelley: Really trying to be so nice with my words here, okay?
- 39:57Kim Kelley: You can just tell I'm very sarcastic.
- 39:59Kim Kelley: Sarcastic, dark humor, because I can't take any of this corruption seriously.
- 40:02Kim Kelley: It's really quite ridiculous.
- 40:03Kim Kelley: All right.
- 40:04Kim Kelley: So, all that to say, I hope that makes sense for people to understand.
- 40:06Kim Kelley: A lot of times cops are seen as the bad guys.
- 40:08Kim Kelley: And I'm not here to defend the corrupt cops.
- 40:10Kim Kelley: I'm here to say there are a lot of problems in that realm.
- 40:13Kim Kelley: And I go to where problems are.
- 40:15Kim Kelley: So the difference between me and most people who complain about problems is I'm actually stepping in to help, right?
- 40:20Kim Kelley: I get a lot of flack from people who don't know a lot about what they're talking about.
- 40:24Kim Kelley: I can't believe you're working with law enforcement.
- 40:26Kim Kelley: You're training the devil.
- 40:26Kim Kelley: And I'm like, God bless you very much.
- 40:28Kim Kelley: We could allow this fire to continue festing, festering.
- 40:30Kim Kelley: Would that be better?
- 40:31Kim Kelley: No, we should step in.
- 40:33Kim Kelley: Okay.
- 40:34Kim Kelley: Yeah, let's step in to try to solve problems, right?
- 40:36Kim Kelley: But I really want people to understand that it's, you know, it's generally the leadership that blocks the good things from happening.
- 40:44Kim Kelley: Okay.
- 40:44Kim Kelley: To say it nicely and in summary.
- 40:46Kim Kelley: So here at the ranch, beyond, you know, actually real world training, that's actually a higher standard than most.
- 40:53Kim Kelley: This is a tier one training facility.
- 40:54Kim Kelley: Like, look, in the all overall world of trading, no one's, no one who knows what they're talking about is just gonna disagree with me.
- 41:01Kim Kelley: There's a lot of BS out there and, you know, people on YouTube, et cetera.
- 41:04Kim Kelley: And like, that's not real world actual tactics.
- 41:06Kim Kelley: That's that's not best practices at all.
- 41:08Kim Kelley: So very high standard of training across the board, like you mentioned, from vehicle mobility and driving to, you know, we have the mount side and the shoot house and all these the sniper tower, like all these world-class facilities for generally, you know, tactics training.
- 41:19Kim Kelley: There's nothing you can't do here.
- 41:21Kim Kelley: Then um, we are also a TQL-accredited facility, which in Texas is the accreditation law enforcement needs to get hours that count towards their requirements.
- 41:29Kim Kelley: So we also do anti-TQL-accredited anti-trafficking training programs for law enforcement.
- 41:36Kim Kelley: So, for people to understand more about what I'm talking about, here's the summary, right?
- 41:40Kim Kelley: Everyone, we're talking law enforcement, everyone needs the fundamentals, what trafficking is and is not.
- 41:46Kim Kelley: Most, if anyone does say in law enforcement that they get some kind of annual training, it's very rare that that training is actually helpful.
- 41:55Kim Kelley: Let me explain.
- 41:56Kim Kelley: Generally, they're talking about, and it's generally that led by very well-funded nonprofits who are calling themselves anti-trafficking.
- 42:03Kim Kelley: Really, they're just talking about sex workers.
- 42:07Kim Kelley: Or they're anti-porn or they're anti-sex work.
- 42:12Kim Kelley: But when they give law enforcement this training, right, when we're talking about sex workers, that is not the same thing.
- 42:18Kim Kelley: Let me let me let me make something real clear.
- 42:20Kim Kelley: Obviously, adults can absolutely be exploited.
- 42:22Kim Kelley: Obviously, there's a lot of crossover, meaning there can be overlap in the world of signing up to do something like sex work.
- 42:29Kim Kelley: Maybe you love it, maybe you don't want to, but that's your last chance, uh, your last resort.
- 42:33Kim Kelley: My point is there's a very big difference in signing up for something.
- 42:37Kim Kelley: And some people say they love it.
- 42:39Kim Kelley: And then some people, for sure, it can become abusive or exploitation or something you did not sign up for, right?
- 42:45Kim Kelley: We're talking about adults in this realm, obviously.
- 42:47Kim Kelley: There's a big difference between that and someone being trafficked.
- 42:51Kim Kelley: Now, can this bleed over into this?
- 42:53Kim Kelley: Yes, of course, it can become exploitation, right?
- 42:56Kim Kelley: You can think you're going to a modeling agency and then, ooh, all of a sudden things you didn't like, and now you're okay.
- 43:00Kim Kelley: That can happen, right?
- 43:02Kim Kelley: Very different though.
- 43:03Kim Kelley: Sex work and sex trafficking are not the same thing.
- 43:06Kim Kelley: Fight me.
- 43:07Kim Kelley: I'll I'll debate that all day.
- 43:09Kim Kelley: The reason this matters is not because I'm here to protect sex workers.
- 43:12Kim Kelley: I'm here to protect the innocent, so for sure.
- 43:14Kim Kelley: But I'm just saying, like, I'm definitely not anti-sex workers.
- 43:17Kim Kelley: I know too much.
- 43:18Kim Kelley: I have too many siblings and peers who had that as their only resort when they escaped a cult.
- 43:23Kim Kelley: So I actually do get pretty impassioned about this.
- 43:25Kim Kelley: Just realized, like, I would have no shame in admitting that I, you know, did stripping or something like that.
- 43:30Kim Kelley: I just didn't have to, and I'm very grateful for that.
- 43:32Kim Kelley: But I am willing to fight to the death for people who have an entire, you know, it's just that they call sex work anti-trafficking, and ooh, that's a whole problem for many reasons, but they're raising millions of dollars in the name of protecting the innocent.
- 43:46Kim Kelley: If we're giving law enforcement the wrong information that's not helping them find the real victims, then we're failing the real victims.
- 43:52Kim Kelley: We're also probably just harassing sex workers, and cops are already sick of arresting the same pimps and hoes, right?
- 43:58Kim Kelley: But those sex workers are just trying to make a living or survive, but we're not helping them either.
- 44:02Kim Kelley: Okay.
- 44:03Kim Kelley: The real problem, though, again, like we are missing the real point.
- 44:06Kim Kelley: We are barking up the wrong tree, if you will.
- 44:09Kim Kelley: And the real victims, the real traffickers, the real crimes are not being addressed.
- 44:13Kim Kelley: So policies don't fit this.
- 44:15Kim Kelley: They're looking at this, right?
- 44:17Kim Kelley: The psychology, the survivor-informed care.
- 44:20Kim Kelley: If we are treating trafficking victims like we treat sex workers, or vice versa, that's not helping anybody, right?
- 44:28Kim Kelley: So a whole lot more I could say there.
- 44:30Kim Kelley: But generally, any training that law enforcement does get about trafficking is really just talking about sex work.
- 44:37Kim Kelley: And that is, you know, just not the same body of water.
- 44:40Kim Kelley: Okay.
- 44:40Kim Kelley: Very ineffective for a lot of reasons.
- 44:42Kim Kelley: So the anti-trafficking training.
- 44:45Kim Kelley: We, everybody needs this fundamentals, correct the premise.
- 44:47Kim Kelley: I've literally spoken to maybe three people ever in law enforcement that I didn't need to give the fundamentals to, because they actually like did this for the last 20 years.
- 44:55Kim Kelley: Okay.
- 44:55Kim Kelley: Everybody needs this.
- 44:56Kim Kelley: And I'm talking like to me, 101 and to law enforcement, blows their mind because nobody's saying this.
- 45:03Kim Kelley: Nobody's talking about this.
- 45:04Kim Kelley: Okay, that's how that's how that is.
- 45:06Kim Kelley: All right.
- 45:06Kim Kelley: Then beyond the fundamentals, once we have corrected the premise, then we do specialized training.
- 45:10Kim Kelley: Why?
- 45:11Kim Kelley: Because we have lots of charts and data.
- 45:13Kim Kelley: We're not here to make more pretty charts.
- 45:15Kim Kelley: No.
- 45:16Kim Kelley: The ICAC detective guy, the guy who works in internet crimes against children, is going to need very different training and information than the SWAT guy who just has to, you know, kick in the door and rescue the kid.
- 45:25Kim Kelley: Okay.
- 45:25Kim Kelley: Very different types of Intel training and overall protocols here.
- 45:30Kim Kelley: So we don't need to waste time giving this general brushstroke.
- 45:34Kim Kelley: We need to be very specialized so that our tactics, policies, and SOP and all the different aftercare aspects of this can be effective.
- 45:41Kim Kelley: But also now we are all more cohesive.
- 45:44Kim Kelley: It's a very summarized version of what we're able to achieve here.
- 45:48Kim Kelley: So beyond that, like I mentioned, I have a nonprofit.
- 45:51Kim Kelley: Um, we haven't fully started doing this yet because I've never done any fundraising.
- 45:55Kim Kelley: But because we have the facility, right?
- 45:59Kim Kelley: If we get, you know, XYZ donated for training law enforcement, because that's like one of my big things is to increase training for law enforcement because our frontline protectors could be much more helpful in this fight.
- 46:10Kim Kelley: It goes direct.
- 46:11Kim Kelley: The point is that it doesn't get dissoluted in any salaries or, you know, operational expenses, et cetera.
- 46:16Kim Kelley: We can not only be completely transparent, show you like exactly the type of training and the instructors and how many hours and who, how many departments and units and all the different things.
- 46:23Kim Kelley: We can show you outcomes beyond that, right?
- 46:26Kim Kelley: It's just refreshing to work with the real people, is the long story short, because I've unfortunately had to wade through a lot of well-positioned, well-funded, big talking people and organizations that are very well positioned to be part of the solution.
- 46:41Kim Kelley: And unfortunately, I just saw a lot of exploiting of this problem.
- 46:46Kim Kelley: So as you can tell, um, I don't know, I'm just not afraid to call it out and stand for truth.
- 46:51Kim Kelley: And I might be a little like a little psycho for the truth, you could even say, right?
- 46:57Kim Kelley: Because, yeah, because to me it matters, but it's also like you could even call it a trigger or a, you know, uh it lights something inside me because I can tell when people are lying.
- 47:07Kim Kelley: Like, oh, please try to manipulate me.
- 47:09Kim Kelley: I was born and raised in a cult.
- 47:10Kim Kelley: Try.
- 47:10Kim Kelley: You know what I mean?
- 47:12Kim Kelley: Um, and coming from a petite smiley female, people tend to underestimate that, which I very much enjoy.
- 47:16Kim Kelley: But yeah, all that to say, you know, it's been very cool working with the real ones and you know, a lot of these unsung heroes that the public will never hear about, a lot of these operations and these things that like the public will never hear about, but for one, because that's how the real work is.
- 47:31Kim Kelley: But for two, because like no one's here for the credit or the recognition or the, you know, no one's fundraising on these results.
- 47:38Kim Kelley: So we just get to do the real work and you end up meeting the real people that way.
- 47:43Kim Kelley: Because the fake ones that are there for the power and the prophets can't hang.
- 47:46Kim Kelley: You know, I mean, they're like, wait, how do we make money?
- 47:47Kim Kelley: No.
- 47:48Kim Kelley: So, you know, we're really we're able to do some real things.
- 47:51Kim Kelley: And when it's survivor-informed training, you know, when you're able to also assist with vetting, for example, the aftercare facilities and the trauma-informed, you know, protocols, et cetera, and create modalities for what's helpful and what's not for different types of childhood trauma, like what we're what situations we're rescuing them from.
- 48:10Kim Kelley: Trauma-informed just means the individualized response.
- 48:13Kim Kelley: It means not a one size fits all, it means what's actually helpful for this individual in this situation right now.
- 48:21Kim Kelley: So it's a it's an honor to be part of all of this.
- 48:24Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Absolutely.
- 48:25Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: It's it's it's so impressive to hear and refreshing use that word too.
- 48:32Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: But it is, it's it's refreshing to hear the nuts and bolts of what's actually going on because there is a lot of lip service of well, we want to do this and we're doing this, and but we're only kind of over here, we're not actually where the things happen or the people in in the way you you mentioned.
- 48:54Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Law enforcement, they need to make split-second decisions, and and they need to be prepared as best as possible for those.
- 49:04Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And the best way is through repetition and practice and having those options uh available, not just oh, go take this e-learning course.
- 49:16Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: That you know, there's 10 questions at the end, you get your certificate, and okay, I did my training.
- 49:23Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: It's the real deal.
- 49:25Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Uh, people that are really making the the difference, and they I gotta pick you back off what you said.
- 49:34Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: That uh they they don't care about the credit, they they just love helping people, and I I think that's uh what I'm picking up from the work that you have done and that you are doing that that's kind of overarching that you want to help people no matter where they're at, you don't want one group to be helped and not another, you and you don't want just that awareness, you want that action that goes along with it, and I am uh grateful that you uh wanted to come on the show and share because uh I love learning and and this is so informative and opens my eyes a lot to what is out there and what's not out there, and that some of the things we think are like, oh well, there's you know corrupt people all over the place, and and it comes from the top down, as opposed to thinking that it might be like some lower level manager or lower lower level and going, oh, they're they're the ones that are actually stopping us from doing this.
- 50:46Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: It's no, it's who's creating the budgets, where's the money coming from?
- 50:50Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And oh, sorry, well, we can't do this, or we just want to be lazy and let's just do the same thing that we've always done.
- 50:58Kim Kelley: And um, I have a theory that they count on us not understanding the system because it allows them to continue getting away with doing bad things, and again, that's where awareness can be powerful.
- 51:10Kim Kelley: Um, I just want to highlight, you know, touch on something you said that I want people to kind of I want people to understand the severity of what we're talking about here, okay?
- 51:19Kim Kelley: So to quantify this issue.
- 51:21Kim Kelley: Normally I do when I'm public speaking, I like walk people through the, you know, a few things and kind of spoon feed them a little bit more to get to this point.
- 51:28Kim Kelley: And then we we're quantifying it now.
- 51:29Kim Kelley: We're saying, okay, let's understand what hum what trafficking is, okay, on a global level.
- 51:34Kim Kelley: Trafficking can mean a lot of things, guns, you know, arms, drugs, narcotics, and humans and all the different things.
- 51:39Kim Kelley: Okay, narrow that down to human trafficking.
- 51:41Kim Kelley: Okay, oversimplified.
- 51:42Kim Kelley: It's the sale and exploitation of humans.
- 51:45Kim Kelley: That can be done in many different ways.
- 51:46Kim Kelley: Labor, organ trafficking, sex trafficking, okay.
- 51:49Kim Kelley: Narrow that down to child trafficking globally still.
- 51:53Kim Kelley: A lot of different ways children can, you know, labor and or a lot of the different realms still apply.
- 51:58Kim Kelley: Now narrow that down to the United States.
- 52:00Kim Kelley: All the different ways children are trafficked in the United States, narrow that down to child sex trafficking in the United States.
- 52:06Kim Kelley: We're not even talking about labor and all these other things.
- 52:09Kim Kelley: Okay.
- 52:10Kim Kelley: A few years ago, it was confirmed that child sex trafficking generates at least $50 billion every year in the United States alone.
- 52:18Kim Kelley: That's more than all professional sports combined.
- 52:22Kim Kelley: $50 billion every single year.
- 52:24Kim Kelley: We don't see it.
- 52:25Kim Kelley: We see all these sports and the marketing and the merchandise and the events and this.
- 52:28Kim Kelley: It'd be weird, right, for someone to call that a theory to your face, but we don't see child trafficking.
- 52:33Kim Kelley: So a lot of people are willing to look past it or call it a theory to your face, which is embarrassing for them when they try to do that to me.
- 52:39Kim Kelley: But this is why we're rocking them into the truth, right?
- 52:41Kim Kelley: So now let's continue quantifying it though.
- 52:43Kim Kelley: So once we've understood what this is, we're talking about the sale and exploitation, not just child abuse.
- 52:49Kim Kelley: There's a whole nasty spectrum of bad things.
- 52:50Kim Kelley: No, we're specifically to all of abuse is bad things, right?
- 52:54Kim Kelley: All of trafficking is abuse, not all abuse is trafficking.
- 52:57Kim Kelley: Okay, separate spectrum of child trafficking, spectrum of intensity there.
- 53:01Kim Kelley: All that to say a few years ago it was 50 billion.
- 53:05Kim Kelley: Recently it was confirmed at 76 billion, real quick.
- 53:10Kim Kelley: We are talking about reported data.
- 53:12Kim Kelley: Traffickers don't file taxes.
- 53:14Kim Kelley: Y'all, we're talking about barely scratching the tip of the iceberg at $76 billion every year.
- 53:19Kim Kelley: How many kids is that?
- 53:20Kim Kelley: Okay, it's also the second growing, second largest and fastest growing criminal enterprise on the planet.
- 53:29Kim Kelley: That is also the answer to all my rhetorical questions.
- 53:35Kim Kelley: Why don't we have a federal agency that's dedicated to combating human trafficking in the US?
- 53:40Kim Kelley: We have an agency for education and water and all these other things.
- 53:45Kim Kelley: Go on dot dot gov websites.
- 53:48Kim Kelley: Why don't we have one agency ready that's pretending to combat human trafficking?
- 53:54Kim Kelley: All the war on drugs nonsense that they've gotten votes for, no one's even pretending to care.
- 53:59Kim Kelley: Okay, so next question, because I could go on, media's not talking about it, politicians are silent about okay, is that incompetence or intentional?
- 54:07Kim Kelley: Would it be thriving without the intentional support and protection that it's enjoying?
- 54:14Kim Kelley: Is it that incompetent?
- 54:16Kim Kelley: Because either way, it's unacceptable.
- 54:17Kim Kelley: But we need to ask ourselves to unpack this logic because we need to be willing to see the truth for what it is, not what we want it to be.
- 54:24Kim Kelley: This is a gross, heinous crime, and it's thriving in our country.
- 54:27Kim Kelley: Are we too cowardly to address it?
- 54:29Kim Kelley: Why?
- 54:31Kim Kelley: I have so many more questions, but I want people to unpack that logic for themselves because I am way too chill about how bad this issue is, and people need to understand not only the problems, but how rampant this corruption is, so that we can understand what is and what is not the solution.
- 54:48Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And I think one thing that I've started to learn is this isn't just happening in third world countries.
- 55:00Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Now you were born into a cult and had some move movement around in countries, but as you're mentioning, that these are things that are happening right here in the United States that someone in a person's neighborhood like could be literally a part of it, funding it, having Lord knows what ties to it, and I think that's the part when I guess that's that's the first thing, and then the second thing is when people tie Jesus and the Lord and doing the Lord's work, and we don't call it trafficking something else, and you know, we chloroform somebody and took them.
- 55:51Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: That was just because you know the we wanted to hang out and and uh for a couple weeks and go across the border to Canada and and then you know push all the reports that trafficking never happens, so it's again it's people across the the spectrum, and I and I'm with you that there uh there are just like with any profession, there's there's good people and not so good people, and you can spend your time helping the problem get better, or just put putting it in the back of the mind and pretending it's not even there.
- 56:34Kim Kelley: Yeah.
- 56:34Kim Kelley: Honestly, if this problem wasn't still thriving today, like I would I moved so far on that I was not even thinking about this, you know what I mean?
- 56:42Kim Kelley: Not even selfishly, like in a healthy way.
- 56:45Kim Kelley: I had completely just completely moved on and redesigned my life.
- 56:48Kim Kelley: I would not have done this whole 180 if I wasn't confronted with it and I actually tried to escape that calling for a couple years and that didn't work well, unfortunately.
- 56:58Kim Kelley: I've now fully embraced it.
- 57:00Kim Kelley: But my point is just, you know, for one, it really shouldn't have to be me.
- 57:03Kim Kelley: Nope.
- 57:04Kim Kelley: I should be on a beach somewhere.
- 57:05Kim Kelley: For two, it really should be the people whose job it is to protect and serve.
- 57:09Kim Kelley: You know what I mean?
- 57:10Kim Kelley: Like it shouldn't be controversial to talk about protecting children.
- 57:13Kim Kelley: That's really retarded.
- 57:14Kim Kelley: But then for three, right?
- 57:15Kim Kelley: And I I hope you appreciate like how dark my humor is, how sarcastic I am about this.
- 57:19Kim Kelley: And I also feel like I kind of get to be, because it's it's so ridiculous that and I'm I'm gonna say nobody because look, next chapter, like, show me the good guys, right?
- 57:29Kim Kelley: I'm I'm not saying everybody's bad, but which politicians even making sounds with their mouth about this?
- 57:34Kim Kelley: Why has child trafficking never been mentioned on a presidential debate stage?
- 57:40Kim Kelley: I mean, they're not even trying to get your votes out of it.
- 57:42Kim Kelley: They're like too cowardly to even make the sounds with their mouth.
- 57:46Kim Kelley: Cowardly and corrupt.
- 57:47Kim Kelley: Anyway, just just realize like, please appreciate how dark this humor is, but also like the reason for this sarcasm.
- 57:56Kim Kelley: It's such a ridiculous problem.
- 57:57Kim Kelley: But one of the biggest issues is the cowardice among the good guys that are willing to do nothing.
- 58:04Kim Kelley: So, one of my biggest callings, I guess, and the you know, I accept now I'm a petite smiley female with this sarcastic humor because like it's really embarrassing for them to try to be so cowardly to my face.
- 58:15Kim Kelley: It really is.
- 58:16Kim Kelley: Like, they can't call it a theory to my face, they can't lie to my face, doesn't work well for them.
- 58:20Kim Kelley: When they try to make silly excuses, it's very embarrassing for them.
- 58:23Kim Kelley: But like, seriously, you know what I mean?
- 58:25Kim Kelley: I really just can't, I I can't stomach being the generation that allows this to continue, nor will I let it.
- 58:31Kim Kelley: Nor will I allow my niece to grow up in the world that I've seen just while pretending to be a child on the internet, like on a spectrum of intensity, like, oh, there's some stupid problems.
- 58:39Kim Kelley: I'd love to unpack that in the next episode.
- 58:41Kim Kelley: But like how solvable some of these low-hanging fruit problems are, and that's why I'm focusing on these ones first.
- 58:47Kim Kelley: But then also like the amount of obstacles and people that are just not doing what they say, from organizations to politicians to all of the above.
- 58:55Kim Kelley: But to your point, it's not a far, far away problem.
- 58:58Kim Kelley: And the United States is the biggest problem in the whole world.
- 59:04Kim Kelley: Statistically, per capita, like in every way you put it, the United States is the main consumer, the main destination, the main source.
- 59:12Kim Kelley: Did you also know familial trafficking is the number one most reported form of trafficking in America?
- 59:20Kim Kelley: Families trafficking their own children.
- 59:23Kim Kelley: Not a far, far away problem.
- 59:25Kim Kelley: Not usually a man jumping out of a white van with a mask and a weapon.
- 59:29Kim Kelley: It's someone the kid knows and is supposed to trust and is supposed to be safe with.
- 59:34Kim Kelley: So if our systems don't understand the problem, we're not helping victims.
- 59:40Kim Kelley: We're not stopping this problem.
- 59:41Kim Kelley: We are in fact allowing it to thrive.
- 59:43Kim Kelley: And I refuse to be that generation.
- 59:46Kim Kelley: So I think a lot of uh yeah, lots more to unpack.
- 59:50Kim Kelley: And uh I I I take pride in pissing off bad guys.
- 59:53Kim Kelley: I think more of us should get on board with that.
- 59:55Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Yeah, I I I I agree.
- 59:57Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Um that's one of
- 1:00:00Kim Kelley: the reasons why we we devoted a lot of our a lot of our shows in 2025 to the topic is to to learn more uh to help however we we can and there's so much more we we can do we're right now in the cusp of awareness and then action and it's by having guests like you and others have unfortunately have gone through or even having gone through uh the being in a call and being in traffic just realizing like you said why hasn't why hasn't that been talked about on a debate stage what we have all these billions going through all these different programs but and what what's the reason are we just looking the other way or are we part of the problem and it's it's hard people go well no that's not it and uh it's like well then what is it because nothing's being done to the caliber and the level that it it it needs to be done and it it does it it takes elected officials it it takes community officials takes law enforcement it takes so much coordination and if one of those levels hasn't been trained then it it all the other say all the other departments all the other areas all the work that they're doing is for not because there has to be and I'm sure with the the training that goes on at the ranch everybody has to be kind of on the same page when they're going through a scenario you you can't have you know whether that's the you know the the outdoor driving the competing interests you can't work against each other you can't have people that are here to profit from the problem but not solve the problem you can't have people that are just here for the photo ops none of that is going to help you be effective you know but unfortunately in in most of the world we see all these pretty websites and you know big claims and pretty things and people signing papers and taking pictures we don't see a lot of real world action and that's concerning to me it should be concerning to everyone especially because there's been so much money allocated to government programs and nonprofits and you know if even half of those programs were effective we'd see a lot more action right so I think it's time we stop falling for these talking points and we start paying attention to the actions or the lack thereof but we also start telling ourselves like oh they're trying but they're scared and they wanted to but they got blocked so we should give them more time like we should stop playing along because here's here's what I love to tell people very much, right?
- 1:02:59Kim Kelley: If little old me can be out here eradicating darkness with this little light of mine and I don't have Secret Service or any of those resources at my fingertips, right?
- 1:03:08Kim Kelley: I'm not gonna let anybody get away with the excuse of fear.
- 1:03:12Kim Kelley: It's not a worthy excuse.
- 1:03:14Kim Kelley: I don't care who you are, but especially if you're an elected official whose job it is to protect and serve and you have all those resources to protect you, we don't get to stand in the corner and be afraid of the dark.
- 1:03:26Kim Kelley: And if you're an elected official and you're scared of the dark, we don't need you because children get to stand in the corner and be afraid of the dark.
- 1:03:33Kim Kelley: That's okay.
- 1:03:33Kim Kelley: As adults we get to turn on the lights and if you're an elected official and you can't bother to turn the lights on and we're here like turning the lights on for you and you're trying to keep them off like we need to go away because we're here to bring the light.
- 1:03:47Kim Kelley: We're here to light a freaking fire so that it ignites people.
- 1:03:50Kim Kelley: I hope my example can serve to help more people again you see how I'm really good at eradicating silly excuses, right?
- 1:03:56Kim Kelley: But it's it's about lighting a fire to take action.
- 1:03:59Kim Kelley: I know there's so much all of us can do to be part of the solution and I'm not asking anyone to dedicate their whole life and give all their time and resources like I've chosen to do.
- 1:04:08Kim Kelley: I am saying I want to make it impossible, maybe even embarrassing for people to choose to do nothing.
- 1:04:14Kim Kelley: So my challenge to everyone is to pick one thing you can do to be part of the solution this week.
- 1:04:20Kim Kelley: Don't think about it too long.
- 1:04:22Kim Kelley: Do something think about think about it and start taking action this week.
- 1:04:26Kim Kelley: If you really don't know where to start my other challenge to people five find five kids near you and promise me it won't be them.
- 1:04:35Kim Kelley: Statistically look statistics are very inaccurate that's a whole other subject but if it's something like one in five kids we don't even need to talk about something as extreme as trafficking we're talking about exploitation and abuse pick five kids protect them promise me it won't be them we the people could change that statistic if we were willing to take action that's how easy it could be right oh yeah that's so true.
- 1:04:58Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Yeah I I think we uh we did uh well not we you did an excellent job sharing and I I like the your approach with the with the humor and the smiling and and that is it's it's that or it's the alternative right like if and and you're you're choosing to be the positive light and and to have that smile and continue.
- 1:05:25Kim Kelley: I'm also choosing not to let them affect me.
- 1:05:27Kim Kelley: This isn't a masked smile just so y'all know like I'm not trying to be tough and I'm not saying everybody has to laugh and smile.
- 1:05:33Kim Kelley: I'm saying that's my chosen form of feeling I'm also saying I think it's a very healthy release right because I'm not suppressing I'm releasing I'm just not giving them the bandwidth to affect my thoughts or mood or relationships or dreams or whatever and especially not make me cry.
- 1:05:48Kim Kelley: Like I'm not going to give them that power or that bandwidth now right I was a helpless child.
- 1:05:53Kim Kelley: I couldn't choose back then now like I can choose to not allow them to affect me.
- 1:05:58Kim Kelley: So you know it's it's actually pretty I have a lot to say on the healing process and it's it goes all kinds of places but like that's why it's a disclaimer not an apology.
- 1:06:06Kim Kelley: You know what I mean?
- 1:06:07Kim Kelley: Most a lot of people can't relate and I'm not asking them to I'm just letting them know it is the biggest middle finger you can give to your abusers is to thrive and to not be affected by you know the things they thought would control you.
- 1:06:19Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Absolutely well I think this is good for our first show so I'm just gonna close it out we'll log out and then we'll just log in with that second link and then we'll we'll pick up from there if that works for you.
- 1:06:32Kim Kelley: Yeah it's perfect.
- 1:06:33Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Well thank you to Kim Kelley for joining us has been an action packed very uh uh very big learning experience for me and so much is going on and so much is is not going on and if we can help one person help one child from being exploited or an adult that may not be able to take care of them themselves we're able to help let's help be part of the solution uh awareness is good action is is better and we look forward to uh part two of our episodes with Kim Kelley so uh you're gonna want to tune in uh to the next episode number and in our catalog and we're gonna continue the conversation and so until next time uh we hope that you are a voice for you or somebody in need we'll see you on the next show everybody thank you and thank you Justin thank you so much for having me you're welcome