Movie Review: Sound of Freedom & Child Trafficking in Yakima, WA
At One Crackima, we didn't exactly plan to do movie reviews, but Sound of Freedom may have changed that. On many levels, the film's release has been opposed. The internet is rife with posts about theaters having issues showing the film – and yes, our own theater did seem to suspiciously lack air conditioning that day.
For those of you who haven't seen a trailer, hop onto YouTube or visit Angel Studios. You can even get FREE TICKETS here.
Sound of Freedom focused on a topic near and dear to Yakima's heavy heart: child sex trafficking.
A Quick Review
Overall, excellent! There was a good blend of cinematic art, action, and genuine emotion. Best of all, Sound of Freedom didn't look like a heavy handed B or C-list Christian movie. It could have passed for a standard Hollywood A or B-list film.
But let's talk about how Sound of Freedom and child sex trafficking applies to Yakima, Washington.
Quote 1 – Storytelling & Creation
"The most powerful person in the world is the storyteller."
We'll cover two quotes that stood out to us. The first was at the very end of the film during a special message from Jim Caviezel and Angel Studios.
The topic of storytelling is particularly relevant when it comes to news media in Yakima.
As a general rule, whoever catches the story first is the one who gets to tell it and control the narrative. Apart from some local startups, there is no godly, high-impact media for Yakima County. We have the Yakima Herald-Republic, KIMA, and KIT – our stories are told by leftists.
But if we as Christians became storytellers (and good, prominent ones), our mainstream media would lose traction. Here's why.
Creators & Consumers
There are two categories of people when it comes to storytelling and culture: Creators and Consumers.
If you're storytelling, you're a Creator. Good Creators of any art are actually good Consumers as well; they know what to look for, what techniques or concepts to add to their arsenal, and how to bring more attention to good art. Creators influence culture because they're telling a story from their own worldview, which the Consumers react to.
If you encounter a story, you're a Consumer. You can react to a story positively or negatively. Even choosing to ignore certain stories is a form of reaction – a tactic Yakima media readily employs. But the bottom line is that if you know a story exists, you're a Consumer. There's nothing inherently wrong with being a Consumer. What good is a story if no one hears it?
Only Creators truly influence culture. It's a top-down phenomenon. Creating yields true power, while consuming is purely reactionary.
When Christians create, it forces the media into reaction. This allows Christians to control the narrative and speak the truth.
The Story Gap
Going back to Sound of Freedom. For all we hear about Yakima being a "hub" for human trafficking, our local news doesn't seem to have much to say.
Since 2020, the Yakima Herald-Republic has written only a handful of stories (we counted 8 total) on human sex trafficking that were truly local to Yakima. The majority of their stories covered just a single event that happened in 2022, when a mother was accused of trafficking her daughter.
The remaining stories on trafficking didn't occur in Yakima.
Quote 2 – The Need to Understand & Fight
The second quote from The Sound of Freedom that we'll unpack was equally profound.
"Over two million children a year are being sucked into the deepest recesses of hell. Trust me, if we do nothing, their pain is going to spread and spread until someday it’s going to reach the likes of you. And that will be a nightmare that you’re never going to wake up from."
In other words, if we as Christians don't fight trafficking – whether that's storytelling, donating, or hands-on work – it will come to us and our children. In some cases, it may have already.
So what do we know about human trafficking in Yakima?
Broad Concepts of Washington Trafficking
We're told the state of Washington, and specifically Central Washington, is considered a hub for trafficking of all kinds: labor, sex, drugs, etc.
There are several, universally accepted reasons behind why that is:
- Washington shares an international border with Canada.
- Washington has a high number of water ports – we don't often think about these, but Washington has 75 ports spread across 33 of our 39 counties. The majority of our state is accessible by water.
- Washington has a high population of immigrants in the agricultural industry, and indigenous tribal members – both are demographics highly targeted by traffickers.
- Washington has a lot of empty, rural areas that are largely unmonitored or have fewer resources to get out of trafficking.
It's easy to understand these bigger idea, but finding concrete, believable numbers about how bad trafficking is in Yakima is almost impossible.
We took a crack at it.
The National Human Trafficking Hotline
In 2021, there were 955 signals to the National Human Trafficking Hotline that were specified to Washington State. A "signal" is any kind of call, text, or tip the Hotline received from a potential victim of trafficking or a concerned party.
Washington's signals comprised only 2% of the 51,073 total signals to the Hotline. 16,815 signals (33%) came from unspecified locations.
In 2021, the Hotline identified a total of 233 cases involving 337 individual victims in Washington State. If we were to distribute those cases by population between Seattle, Spokane, and Yakima, it would look something like this:
Using some basic math, at least 31 of the 337 individuals may have been trafficked in Yakima.
Washington State Patrol & Missing Persons
Sound of Freedom's main emphasis was on child trafficking, so we'll adjust our numbers.
According the Washington State Patrol's most recent numbers, there are at least 20 juveniles missing from the Yakama Reservation. The NamUs database also lists 4 missing juveniles from Yakima County, 1 of which is unique from State Patrol's list.
According to an organization called Saved in America, "30% of [all] missing [children] are being trafficked."
Yakima County is missing about 21 children – the equivalent of a small classroom. It's reasonable to assume at least 7 missing children from Yakima have been trafficked.
**These numbers don't include runaway children who may have encountered traffickers but still managed to be found or return home.
The Takeaway
Sound of Freedom may be one of the best Christian films released in our nation to date. It's a huge step towards Christians dominating storytelling. Mainstream news has begrudgingly confessed Sound of Freedom grossed more than the new Indiana Jones movie – a large and ironic slap in the face to Disney.
