Posted on 04/30/2016 10:47:17 AM PDT by huldah1776
She was back.
Back where she was held captive. Back where she feared she would never see her family again. Back in Imperial County, California. But this time she had shifted from defense to offense.
In 2002, Elizabeth Smart made headlines when she was kidnapped from her bedroom in Salt Lake. Smart, only 14 at the time, spent nine months held captive in the mountains near her familys home and later in Imperial County, California, which is where she returned 12 years later for a special mission with Operation Underground Railroad.
Operation Underground Railroad
For 12 years as a U.S. government agent, Tim Ballard worked with an undercover operative to save American children from sex trafficking, child pornography and sex tourism. But because he worked for the U.S. government, he could only rescue American children everywhere else was outside his jurisdiction. On multiple occasions, his team was forced to leave innocent children from other nations behind.
In my last couple years of working for the government, I had to walk away from operations where the foreign governments wanted to work; they wanted help, but they didnt have the resources and they didnt really have a plan. I finally just decided that I would try a new approach and go private and take the tools we learned, Ballard said.
Ballard left his job and Operation Underground Railroad came to fruition in 2013. The nonprofit organization is very similar to what Ballard was doing before going on missions to rescue children only now Ballard can save children in countries around the world. (We do) not worry about which jurisdiction its under or about what courtroom the case is going to be prosecuted ... we just go save the kids and get the bad guys in jail, Ballard said.
(Excerpt) Read more at utahvalley360.com ...
Their site: http://ourrescue.org/
The movie: http://theabolitionistsmovie.com/
facebook [public]: https://www.facebook.com/OURrescue
An abomination actually discussed by the current administration but unless the pre-born are murdered, no help via gov't grants.
http://www.lifenews.com/2015/07/20/obama-no-federal-grants-for-groups-helping-sex-trafficking-victims-that-dont-push-abortions/
Except she wasn’t a victim of trafficking. She was a victim of Mormon theology.
Wow, those numbers are pretty staggering
As I recall, she was a victim of her mom's weird, guilty-liberal habit of bringing home stray homeless men to work for the family--one of whom returned at night and kidnapped the daughter.
It's possible that's a consequence of Mormon theology somehow, I don't know. But we sure had a bunch of bohemian-agnostic-arty women pursuing similar clueless attempts at charity back East in the 1960s, and they sure weren't Mormon. The results were not too dissimilar.
It is amazing that she came through that ordeal so strong. So many people would have become forever victims, wallowing in their miserable memories and never getting past it.
While I’ve posted in thousands of threads on FR, I’ve only posted a couple of threads myself. One of them was to announce that Elizabeth Smart had been rescued.
The guy who kidnapped her did so because he ‘had a testimony’ (mormon word for good feeling from God) that she was to be his ‘plural wife’ (which is required for godhood/salvation according to their own sacred writings). It was Mormon theology that was behind his beliefs and his action.
That’s ridiculous!
I agree. Her story, as told in the press, is off. I have never believed that it really happened as portrayed.
Have always wondered if the parents basically “gave” her to that guy.
Well, she looks like she turned out fairly descent.
I never saw anything “off” about it.
Didn’t she not try to get away while left unattended?
She was in public many times with her “kidnappers” and photographed.
But her captors threatened to kidnap her sister if she misbehaved. She did what she was told so as to save her sister from what had befallen her.
Many kidnapping victims don’t. Especially when their family is threatened.
She was allowed to roam free and went to parties and elsewhere. She went everywhere except home or to a police station. No, I’ll never believe the story.
She is a brave and resilient woman. May God bless her.
My, you are very hateful. She was an innocent child, kidnapped and raped by this animal. I cannot imagine the emotional trauma that she was still suffering when she appeared to be physically in a position to escape.
Patty Hearst reacted the same way to her kidnapping but at a older age. Maybe you should contemplated how kidnappers can twist a victims mind. The similar reactions of both women speaks volumes.
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