Abolishing Sex Slavery

“Proclaim Liberty throughout all the Land Unto all the inhabitants thereof."​(Leviticus 25:10)

Holly Otten on Prayer Assignment at the National monument, the Liberty Bell, a symbol of FREEDOM! 

After spending 3 days alone with God, praying, travailing and fasting, I received a vision from the Lord.
           I saw Jesus Christ riding quickly toward me on a white horse. He had a double-edged sword in His hand. I received the knowledge that one side of the sword was to release His justice and the other side was to set the captives free. I knew that this vision was referring to the sex trafficking cause that I only recently had been called by God to take up. On another occasion while in prayer, God broke my heart with the following vision.
          I saw women laying all over the ground. They were bruised and battered looking; clothes dirty and torn. I screamed at what I saw. My heart broke. In the natural realm, I wept profusely. In the midst of my tears, I heard God say, "Satan's been mopping up the floor with them."
            Months before, in September of 2014, on a visit to a healing ministry in Canada, God called me and my husband to include in our ministry the sex slavery cause. Until then, our ministry was to promote healing for survivors of sexual abuse. While there, I had a conversation with the ministry leader who told me that she had just been given a home so that she could take in women coming out of the life of prostitution and sexual exploitation. Every time she talked about this home during my stay, and the burden that God had placed on her heart, I would break out in tears. She had also shared with me that while we were talking, she heard these words in her spirit from the Lord─Underground Railroad.
            After I returned home, God told me to prayer walk at our state Capitol building regularly. On my first visit with a group of intercessors, while walking the halls, a bust of a woman stopped me in my tracks. I knew that God was bringing my attention to it. The plaque below the bust said “Elizabeth Buffam Chase.” When our group joined together at the end, my pastor said to me, “God is giving you a new mantle.” As soon as I got home, I researched this woman who lived in my state and learned that her home was a Station on the Underground Railroad. Elizabeth and her husband Samuel were very influential in the anti-slavery movement. She died on my birthdate, December 12th. One significant memory that I have related to this time period, is the day when I took one of our adopted daughter’s─one whom we rescued from a life of sexual exploitation─to our state Capitol, where we joined a prayer gathering for our state. We have a picture together in front of a replica of the Liberty Bell, in which it states, “Proclaim Liberty throughout all the Land Unto all the inhabitants thereof" (Leviticus 25:10). The verse refers to the Year of Jubilee, when the Israelites were instructed to return property and free slaves every 50 years.
            After 1 year of prayer walking at our state Capitol, God started bringing local politicians into my life; each one, a Christian, and desiring to see an end to sex trafficking in our state. One state representative invited me and our ministry team to the floor of the Congressional House to introduce us and honor us for our work. This congresswoman also came to my church where our ministry was hosting an event to raise awareness on sex trafficking. Another state representative came and sat down with us in a small intimate setting to hear the testimony of a woman whom we helped get free from her trafficker. As he listened to the horrors of what she went through, tears streamed down his manly face. I also became good friends with Senator Cassidy* whose cousin was killed by her trafficker, because she dared to leave him and start life over in another state. Senator Cassidy also introduced me and our ministry team to the Senate Congressional floor on 2 occasions. These were opportunities to raise awareness of sex trafficking in our state, and also of the work that our ministry is doing. In the last appearance, the Chair of the Senate thanked us from the podium for our work. I felt that his words came straight from God’s heart.
            Senator Cassidy and I have worked together on several initiatives in our work to end sex trafficking in our state. Senator Cassidy invited our ministry to lead a presentation in the state Capitol to raise awareness with its Congress members. Members were given invitations to come and hear a presentation on the subject, which was led by me. We showed excerpts of a powerful docufilm called “Nefarious-Merchants of Souls,” that caused one man to shed tears. We also distributed small packets with information, including statistics and resources within our state. Another initiative involved a legislative package that I created, with the purpose for our government to mandate that the National Human Trafficking hotline number be posted at hubs throughout the state that are known for sex trafficking. The senator took my package, in which I spent considerable hours researching and writing, and had it drafted by her legal team. It was then brought to a vote with her peers, in which I attended and gave testimony. The bill did not pass that day, but a few years later it did pass, when reworded and introduced by a fellow senator. Senator Cassidy was upset that her bill was “stolen,” but we are so happy the bill was passed into law. I was ecstatic on the day that I saw a hotline poster on the back of a restroom door of the truck stop in my neighborhood, which I prayer walked for years, while alone or with prayer teams.
            Truck stops and other travel hubs are places where one can spot persons being trafficked, as well as hotels, massage parlors and gentlemen clubs. With this in mind, our ministry took on an initiative to raise awareness of sex trafficking in hotels around the state. We created small packages with information, including posters with the hotline number and our contact information. While visiting   a low economy motel, I spotted a young woman who was clearly being trafficked by 2 traffickers or pimps. Because of my knowledge on how to spot a victim of sex trafficking, I knew it when I saw it. I called the local police and they responded by thanking me for calling and drove out to the motel immediately. However, I didn’t stay to see how things turned out. This same motel was brought to my attention by a friend whose teen granddaughter and friends were abducted by a few men and brought there, where they were drugged and told they would have to perform sex acts on men. I feel that God purposed for me to learn of these things firsthand because He wanted to burden by heart so that I would pray and act, with the purpose to abolish sex slavery in my state.
            God has not only led me to intercede for sex slavery to be abolished in my state, but also in my nation of America. While attending a 4-day global anti-trafficking summit in D.C., I went through training in lobbying government officials. We were then sent out in teams to visit U.S. offices of senators and representatives, where we talked with Congress members or staff, sharing about details related to sex trafficking, and urging them to pass anti-trafficking laws. God has had me travel to D.C. with prayer teams on many occasions, and one of the reasons is to pray for end to sex slavery in America. After God had me facilitate prayer gatherings in states across the U.S. in a 2-year span, He said to me, “Now, take your post.” He further instructed me to start a monthly national prayer call, with the sole purpose of praying for an end to sexual abuse and sex slavery. We are certain to include praying the battle plan on each call; the strategy that God downloaded in my heart, to end sex slavery. I have obeyed God and we are now in our 5th year of facilitating the 50 STATES NIGHTWATCH prayer call.
            God has further burdened my heart to save His daughters from sex slavery by speaking to me through a children’s book entitled Moses.* I was in the children’s library checking out books with my son when I came upon this book about the life of Harriet Tubman, an abolitionist who was part of the Underground Railroad and helped free approximately 300 people from slavery. I knew I had to take this book home and when I finally sat down to read it by myself, the words in the book came to life in my heart. The entire text contains conversations between God and Harriet, words from God that guided and instructed Harriet in the ways that she should go in order to become free herself and then to lead others to freedom. When I read words that were from God, I felt that God was speaking them to ME! I wept throughout the entire book and these words will forever ring in my heart. “Be the Moses of your people…I have blessed you with a strong body, a clever mind. You heal the sick and see the future. Use your gifts to break the chains…Save all you can, daughter.” And Harriet’s response is my response. “I will do as You say Lord. I will show others the way to freedom that You have shown me.”*
 
Notes
1. Senator Cassidy-name changed. 
2. Moses by Carol Boston Weatherford and Kadir Nelson. Jump at the Sun, Hyperian Books for Children, New York. 2006. 

“I prayed for freedom for twenty years, but received no answer, until I prayed with my legs.”
─Quote by the 19th century abolitionist and former slave Frederick Douglass.

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