AN INTERVIEW WITH THE FOUNDER OF VIGILANTE TRUTH

We sat down with the founder of Vigilante Truth, Bo Quickel, to speak with him about the inspiration behind his North Carolina based organization. If you are someone who has ever heard of the sex trafficking industry or an organization fighting sex trafficking, it is very likely that the said organization(s) was on the rescue side. These organizations handle the restoration of victims after their rescue, to get them slowly back into the swing of the world. Restoration after these traumatic circumstances is crucial and these steps are (and always will be) incredibly important in the survival of these girls, but Bo has decided to take a different approach. Vigilante Truth’s focus is to end the DEMAND for sex trafficking in the USA (reaching the consumers – men – who are paying for sex). With lots of thought, research, and faith behind him he understood the route God called him to take: educating men on the pricelessness of woman to prevent this industry from further growing and succeeding.

With that goal in mind, here is what Bo had to say on behalf of his organization:

Was there a specific moment, event, place, or thing that inspired you to start this organization?

Yes, there was. I had met with a couple to help them raise funds for their charity. I really didn’t know what their charity was going to be, but it turned out to be fighting trafficking! A one-hour lunch meeting turned to ten hours and it was during that time that I learned all about trafficking and began the decision making process of making this my life’s work.

Where did the inspiration behind the name “Vigilante Truth” come from?

A prophetess was given the name and she told me [pause], it came directly from God. So did the logo, in a vision. The name and the logo are all God ordained.

I understand that you own a trucking company that is used to fund the organization, can you explain how that works and how they tie together?

So, the first goal was to fight trafficking full time. Well, I find that most organizations (no matter what charitable cause they are trying to help out) spend 80% of their time fundraising and 20% of their time actually doing the work. After figuring this out, I realized that I could fund Vigilante Truth through a business enterprise that would only take me, say, 20% of my time to run that company, and allow me 80% of my time to do the work.

We opened up a trucking company as a new endeavor only because a large portion of the consumer demand to engage in sex with the trafficked girls and boys are truck drivers. We were able to enter in to that market place authentically and speak into those drivers and truck company owners because we were one of them. It is two-fold, we are able to speak to a large portion of the demand because we are in the [trucking] arena and at the same time, we are able to fund the entire nonprofit with just the business itself.

Can you tell me a little about the work your organization does?

We are designed and determined to focus on the demand for trafficking. That means ANYONE who is going to pay to have commercial sex in the United States. We market towards it, we brand towards it, our operations are based on it, to stem demand. Basically, we are out to change the hearts of men and the culture of how men view women and decrease sexual exploitation and sexual abuse through those channels.

 How do you feel the organization has grown or changed over time?

The organization has changed over time simply due to the lack of information and understanding that both myself and those fighting trafficking in our country had. Seven years ago, when we started, there were little to no experts, you couldn’t google or YouTube or anything along those lines, anything to do with trafficking. In fact, when I first started seven years ago, I could only find one picture out of all of the google images no matter what type of key word I used for trafficking. So, as we have gained knowledge, revelation and wisdom in not only how to fight this problem but also knowing exactly what the problem is, then certainly the organization itself has had to adapt and change with that wisdom as well.

What would you consider to be the greatest strength of the organization?

Passion and perseverance would be the two greatest strengths. We are not going anywhere because this is a lifelong project, and it is actually becoming generationally lifelong now so were just not going to stop until this problem ends. I think that many people get a heart for something, many people get a passion for something and its usually just for a season of their life. I don’t see that in this, I think this is -until trafficking ends- this is what we will be doing.

Are there any areas in the organization where you feel that there could be improvement?

The organization is still top heavy, and what I mean by that is that we have a great executive team, a great board, but we still need to be multiplying and teaching and reproducing those entities into our organization so that we become more balanced. [We need] More speakers, more teachers, more volunteers actually doing the work in the operations, the operation teams (number of those), those teams in play. That would be our greatest weakness right now.

What makes this organization different than other organizations?

As far as sex trafficking (or human trafficking) in general is concerned, most (if not close to all) organizations are more focused on restoration of the victims or victims’ rights, as they should be, however its leaving the demand side, the consumer demand side, heavily unbalanced in combatting the issue from that stand point. So, we are unique in that we are the only organization (that I am aware of), that is solely focused on the consumer demand as a way to end trafficking in the United States.

What are some goals for the organization for the next 3-5 years? Where do you see it going?

If we were asked, what is the one thing that we are supposed to be by design, we are supposed to be the voice of the voiceless. We use that voice to talk to the men (consumer demand), so the voice just needs to be louder, nationwide verses regional, it needs to be targeted, it needs to find more ears that will listen. So we just need to continue to expand out into different operations, different ideas, different market places, just so we can continue getting to different hearts of men.

What Vigilante Truth is striving to do, is educate the public on the issues that arise from the sex trafficking industry that might typically be overlooked. While there are a high number of trafficked victims who are in need of being saved from their current situations, there are steps that can be put in place to either end the demand or prevent these situations from occurring or being available in the future. The brokenness that the men feel that participate in paying for sex from these trafficked women, can be addressed if we get to the root of their issues. Let us continue to help change the culture, minds and hearts of MEN who are keeping the demand high for sex trafficked victims.

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