Jaco Booyens brings fight against human trafficking to Grayson County

DENISON, Texas (KXII) - For the last 20 years, Jaco Booyens has been fighting to stop sex trafficking across the globe, but now he’s bringing the fight to Texas.

“My sister was trafficked, she was twelve at the time,” Booyens said. “We were raised by a single mother. Nobody was talking about human trafficking at that time, so they considered it a runaway child or a child just gone missing.”

It took 6 years to get Jaco Booyens’ sister back.

Now, he is fighting to prevent anyone else from falling victim to the same crime.

“Once Elanka was rescued, we learned through her eyes and her experiences, really, what human trafficking was,” Booyens said. “I just heard God say, not another one. And so we’ve been fighting since.”

Booyens was the guest speaker at Thursday’s Texoma Patriots meeting. His purpose was to raise awareness about sex trafficking within the Texoma community.

“One child being trafficked is too many in the state of Texas, one,” Booyens said. “And there’s 79,000 women and children within the sex trafficking environment in Texas alone, half a million in America. So we got a problem.”

Booyens said that the best thing you can do to help is learn about the warning signs of trafficking and have open conversations about it with your friends and family.

“The golden rule is see something, say something,” Booyens said. “And if you come across a child that you think is under distress, you ask one question: are you safe?”

You don’t have to be an expert to do your part to help.

“They’re saving lives because they don’t know the person they talk to, their intimate struggles, their family, their life, their prodigal son or daughter that’s missing, that’s pulling away.”

For more information on Booyen’s mission and to learn more about trafficking, you can visit the Jaco Booyens Ministries website or check out Booyens’ Instagram page.

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