The Tennessee State House is set to consider a resolution honoring and commending the Mission America Foundation, a Tennessee-based 501c(3) organization dedicated to fighting human trafficking, for the work they do.
The Mission America Foundation works to empower military veterans to utilize their skill sets to help eradicate child and human trafficking.
Representative Rusty Grills (R-Newbern-HD77) (pictured above) has sponsored HJR0856, and the resolution has been placed on the House consent calendar for Thursday, February 24.
The resolution says:
BE IT RESOLVED BY THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES OF THE ONE HUNDRED TWELFTH GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE STATE OF TENNESSEE, THE SENATE CONCURRING, that we honor and commend Mission America Foundation for its important work in reducing the incidence of child sex trafficking, rescuing its victims, and prosecuting its perpetrators.
The Mission America Foundation’s website describes the important work they do.
Mission America is dedicated to eradicating Child and Human Trafficking. We utilize prior military personnel to investigate trafficking leads and providing intelligence to law enforcement agencies. We provide “Situationally Aware Fundamentally Empowered” (S.A.F.E), self defense training to young boys and girls. Our focus is increasing trafficking awareness, through speaking engagements to bring awareness to the domestic trafficking problems that plague this great nation.
The Mission America Foundation describes their sole purpose as being to eliminate child and human trafficking. Child and human trafficking is described by the foundation as a $150 billion-dollar industry where 1.2 million children are sold around the world per year. They estimate that there are 350,000 trafficked in the United States.
The United States Department of State describes human trafficking as “both a grave crime and a human rights abuse, it compromises national and economic security, undermines the rule of law, and harms the well-being of individuals and communities everywhere. It is a crime of exploitation; traffickers profit at the expense of their victims by compelling them to perform labor or to engage in commercial sex in every region of the United States and around the world.”
Mission America Co-Chair Aaron Spradlin told the The Tennessee Star how he felt about the resolution honoring the work his organization does:
On behalf of the Mission America Foundation and its members, we would like to thank the state of Tennessee, Representative Grills, and the representatives of the House and of the Senate for this great honor. This is an ever growing pandemic throughout our country and especially here in the state of Tennessee. We are going to continue to everything we can possibly do to bring awareness, affect legislation, and attempt to purge this great evil from our great state.
The Mission America Foundation was founded in 2021.
The resolution honoring the Mission America Foundation is expected to pass.
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Aaron Gulbransen is a reporter at The Tennessee Star and The Star News Network. Email tips to [email protected].
Photo “Rusty Grills” by Tennessee General Assembly. Photo “Human Trafficking” by Mission America Foundation.
I am all for commending organizations that oppose illegal activities but is it REALLY necessary to add such resolutions to an already crammed legislative agenda all for a feel good moment?