Editor’s Note: Our readers responded strongly to this story when it originally ran; we’re reposting it here in case you missed it.
Tim Tebow has been fighting human trafficking for years and his organization, the Tim Tebow Foundation, has saved thousands around the world.
In a recent Instagram video, Tebow shared a bit about his work.
“A few years ago, we deepened our fight in this terrible evil in the world of human trafficking and child exploitation,” he said.
“In the last 365 days, we’re so excited to share with you that we have grown so much and been part of rescuing thousands and building safe homes in so many different countries.”
TTF is now raising money to build a protection center in Thailand for girls who have been rescued from human traffickers.
These girls “are still in danger with active threats, death threats and prices on their head, just so they can’t testify against their trafficker,” Tebow noted.
“This protection center will provide love, safety and care for 40 girls at a time,” he said. “But right now we have to act urgently. There are 15 girls in Thailand waiting on this home.”
Tebow shared a few years ago how he became passionate about fighting human trafficking.
In an Op-Ed for Fox News, the former football star said his father once purchased four young girls overseas in order to give them their freedom.
“My dad was not going to be the man who did nothing. Had he just stood there silently, who knows where these girls would have been taken and what would have been done to them,” Tebow wrote.
Since then, TTF has helped thousands more.
In an interview last year, Tebow said he wants to focus on his charity work rather than return to sports, according to USA Today.
“I think the hardest thing for me is there’s so many things that I am very passionate about. No. 1 being everything that we’re doing at TTF,” Tebow said.
“Now we’re in 67 countries and we’re building more hospitals right now and we’re building more special needs orphanages and villages and rescuing girls from trafficking. And I just am so passionate about that.
“I would love to coach and love to support, build culture and love on student athletes, but I think it would be hard. I know if I did that, I would be so all-in, and it would really be hard to do some of the other things that I’m so passionate about as well,” Tebow said.
“We just believe it’s one of the greatest evils in the world today, and it’s not just something that is happening overseas or in a third-world country or when you turn on the movie ‘Taken,’” Tebow added.
“It’s happening in our backyard, it’s happening in our schools, it’s happening in our communities. It’s everywhere. … This is going to take an army of people that say, ‘No longer on our watch are we going to sit back and let this happen or watch this happen or support it happening.'”
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
