Heroes & Brave Voices

This page honors individuals who have shown extraordinary courage in the face of child trafficking and sexual exploitation. Some are survivors who spoke out despite enormous personal risk. Others are rescuers who put their lives on the line to save children. We thank them for their bravery and for the light they continue to shine on these dark crimes.

Below each profile you will find their foundation or organization, websites, verified social media accounts, and direct contact details so that Stop All Rape may reach out to say hello and thank you.

Table of Contents

  1. In Memoriam
  2. Brave Voices
  3. Heroes
  4. Editorial Due-Diligence Notes

In Memoriam

Virginia Giuffre (née Roberts)

August 9, 1983 – April 25, 2025

Survivor and tireless advocate who courageously exposed the Jeffrey Epstein international sex trafficking network, naming powerful individuals despite intense pressure and threats. She gave countless other survivors the courage to come forward. She passed away at her farm in Western Australia in April 2025, at age 41, after a lifetime of carrying enormous trauma. Her posthumous memoir Nobody’s Girl was released in October 2025. Her foundation SOAR continues her mission.

Foundation

  • Speak Out, Act, Reclaim (SOAR) — formerly Victims Refuse Silence

Website

Contact

  • The SOAR site includes a “Need Help?” section with links to the National Human Trafficking Hotline (1-888-373-7888)
  • The organization is in an early-stage phase and not yet accepting donations
  • No active personal social media accounts located; the organization site focuses on survivor resources and her legacy

Book (Posthumous)

  • Nobody’s Girl: A Memoir of Surviving Abuse and Fighting for Justice (Knopf / Penguin Random House)

To honor Virginia’s memory, Stop All Rape may wish to write to SOAR rather than to Virginia’s personal channels.

Brave Voices

Survivors who broke their silence and spoke out despite enormous personal risk.

Anneke Lucas — Belgium / United States

Belgian survivor who was sold by her own mother at age six into a high-level European pedophile network. She survived five years of unimaginable abuse before being released, then spent more than thirty years on her healing journey. She is the founder and executive director of Liberation Prison Yoga (LPY), creator of the Unconditional Model, and an internationally recognized author, speaker, and advocate for survivors of child sex trafficking. Personal Website Social Media
  • Instagram: @anneke.lucas
  • X/Twitter: @AnnekeLucas
  • Facebook: AnnekeLucas2
  • YouTube: Anneke Lucas channel (linked from her site)
  • Podcast: Anneke Lucas Podcast (available on Spotify, Buzzsprout, and other platforms)
⚠️ URL Warning: The original Liberation Prison Yoga domain (liberationprisonyoga.org) appears to have been hijacked and now redirects to an unrelated site. Please contact Anneke through annekelucas.com instead. See the URL Warning section at the bottom of this document. Book Contact
  • Contact form or email available via her website

Sunitha Krishnan — India

Co-founder of Prajwala (“eternal flame”), one of the world’s largest anti-trafficking organizations. A survivor of gang rape at age 15, she turned her trauma into a lifelong mission. Prajwala is credited with rescuing tens of thousands of women and girls (some as young as three) across 12 countries. She has survived an estimated 17 attempts on her life, including an acid attack, a poisoning, and beatings that left her deaf in one ear. She was awarded India’s Padma Shri in 2016 and is the keynote speaker at the 2026 Asia Region Anti-Trafficking Conference featured in our Events Calendar.

Organization

  • Prajwala — founded 1996, Hyderabad, India

Website

Social Media

Contact

Book

  • I Am What I Am (memoir, 2026)

Nadia Murad — Iraq / Germany

Yazidi survivor of the 2014 ISIS genocide, during which she was abducted from her village of Kocho, enslaved, and trafficked alongside thousands of other Yazidi women and girls. After escaping, she chose to speak openly to the world, defying the stigma attached to survivors. She became the first UN Goodwill Ambassador for the Dignity of Survivors of Human Trafficking (2016) and was awarded the 2018 Nobel Peace Prize. She founded Nadia’s Initiative and co-founded the Global Survivors Fund with Dr. Denis Mukwege.

Organization

  • Nadia’s Initiative

Website

Social Media

Contact

  • Contact and donation forms available on the Nadia’s Initiative site
  • Also co-founded the Global Survivors Fund (separate but related organization)

Book

  • The Last Girl: My Story of Captivity, and My Fight Against the Islamic State

More Heroes

Individuals who have put their lives on the line to actively rescue children from trafficking and exploitation.

Tim Ballard — United States

V4CR is an internationally respected group leading the fight against human trafficking. Their deployment of Case Closed Software is indicative of how the company continually innovates in the fight to save lives.

Former U.S. Department of Homeland Security Special Agent who worked on the Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force and as an undercover operative on the Child Sex Tourism Jump Team. He founded Operation Underground Railroad (now Our Rescue) in 2013; the 2023 film Sound of Freedom was inspired by his early work there. He resigned from Our Rescue in 2023 and has since founded the separate Tim Ballard Foundation, which continues international rescue and survivor-support work.

Tim Ballard and Our Rescue are now two separate organizations. Both are listed below. Please see the Editorial Due-Diligence Notes for important context before reaching out.

Current Organization

Tim Ballard Foundation (TBF Rescue)

Website

tbfrescue.org

Social Media

Instagram (personal): @timballard89
Facebook: officialtimballard
X/Twitter: @TimBallard

Original Organization (no longer led by Ballard)

Our Rescue
Website: ourrescue.org
Instagram: @ourrescue
Email: info@ourrescue.org
Toll-free line: (833) 560-0273

Craig Sawyer (“Sawman”) — United States

Former U.S. Marine and Navy SEAL (DEVGRU) sniper. Founder of Veterans For Child Rescue (V4CR), a 501(c)(3) nonprofit working with a task force of U.S. Special Operations, Intelligence Community, and federal law enforcement veterans to expose and eradicate domestic child trafficking. V4CR produced the documentary Contraland and reports a 100 percent conviction rate on its joint counter-trafficking operations with law enforcement.

Both are listed below. Please see the Editorial Due-Diligence Notes for important context before reaching out.

Organization

Veterans For Child Rescue (V4CR) — founded 2017, Tucson, Arizona

Website

vets4childrescue.org

Social Media

Contact

  • Email: info@Vets4ChildRescue.org
  • Phone: 520-210-7499
  • Address: 7320 N La Cholla Blvd, Suite 154-302, Tucson, AZ 85741
  • Event request form available on the website

Kailash Satyarthi — India

Indian children’s rights activist and 2014 Nobel Peace Prize laureate (shared with Malala Yousafzai). He founded Bachpan Bachao Andolan (Save the Childhood Movement) in 1980 and has been credited with freeing more than 130,000 children from forced labor, bonded labor, and trafficking across 140+ countries. He has survived multiple attacks during rescue operations, including a 2004 hospitalization after rescuing children from a circus and a 2011 attack at a Delhi garment sweatshop. His work was instrumental in the adoption of ILO Convention No. 182 on the worst forms of child labor.

Organizations

Bachpan Bachao Andolan (BBA)
Kailash Satyarthi Children’s Foundation (KSCF)

Websites

bba.org.in — Bachpan Bachao Andolan
satyarthi.org.in — Kailash Satyarthi Children’s Foundation
kailashsatyarthi.net — Personal / info site

Social Media

Instagram (personal): @kailash.satyarthi
Instagram (organization): @bachpanbachaoandolan
Additional Facebook and other channels are active and linked from the official sites

Contact

Contact and donation forms available on both the BBA and KSCF websites
Headquartered in New Delhi, India

Editorial Due-Diligence Notes

Internal — not intended for publication on the website unless desired.

Tim Ballard / Our Rescue — Context

Ballard resigned from Our Rescue in 2023 following an internal investigation in which multiple former employees accused him of sexual harassment, spiritual manipulation, grooming, and sexual misconduct. Civil lawsuits were subsequently filed. In November 2025, Salt Lake City prosecutors declined to file criminal charges, citing insufficient admissible evidence. Our Rescue (now under new leadership) has publicly distanced itself from Ballard and rebranded. Ballard now operates the separate Tim Ballard Foundation. Both entities exist; Stop All Rape may wish to decide whether to retain, contextualize, or remove Ballard from the honoree list. The original page you supplied named him as an honoree, so he is retained here — but at the same due-diligence standard you applied to other figures, this warrants your review.

Somaly Mam (Cambodia) — Excluded

A widely cited anti-trafficking figure who was deliberately excluded from this honoree list. A 2014 Newsweek investigation and reporting by the Cambodia Daily documented significant fabrications in her personal account and in survivor testimonies she promoted. She resigned from her foundation in 2014. Contact information retained for internal reference only:

URL Warning: Liberation Prison Yoga

The domain liberationprisonyoga.org — once Anneke Lucas’s nonprofit website — currently appears to redirect to an unrelated commercial / gambling site. It has likely been hijacked or expired. Please use annekelucas.com for outreach to Anneke instead. Compiled by Stop All Rape — Heroes & Brave Voices Directory, May 2026.

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