The Fight Against Child Trafficking With James Haven
Child trafficking is the fastest-growing crime in the world, and if we don’t act now, it will surpass even the drug trade. In this powerful episode, James Haven joins Katie Harward and Surae Chinn to shed light on the hidden dangers facing vulnerable children, the early warning signs that every parent, teacher, and community member should know, and how we can work together to stop this growing crisis. James is a passionate advocate for children's safety and a leading figure in the fight against child trafficking. From his personal experiences to real-life stories of survival, he shares the urgent need for awareness, education, and action. This is more than just a conversation—it’s a call to protect the next generation. Tune in for an eye-opening discussion that could save lives.
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The Fight Against Child Trafficking With James Haven
We are so grateful to have a very special guest with us, James Haven. James is a passionate advocate for children’s safety and a leading figure in the fight against child trafficking. His work has been pivotal in raising awareness about this important issue. We are excited to know more about his journey, the challenges he has faced, and the incredible work he’s doing to protect vulnerable children around the world.
James, thank you so much for being here with us. We appreciate you taking the time to join us.
I’m happy to be here.
Let’s dive right in. To start off, James, can you tell us a little bit about who you are and what you are passionate about?
I’ll state the obvious because people know me from my family. I’m John Voight’s son and Angelina Jolie’s brother. I was raised in the entertainment business, so I’ve been around a lot of things that are very elite in many ways. I’ve been around big events. I have traveled the world and seen so much. I’ve gotten a bird’s eye view of the world that not everyone gets to see.
From that, I’ve been able to cultivate what I believe will be the answers to some of the world’s biggest problems. Most importantly, I am addressing the ability to protect children in ways that have never been done before, especially the technology assisting us in extraordinary ways like AI, and giving better awareness through education around the world to make this world a better place.
I love it. Yeah. Growing up, you had a pretty unique situation. How would you describe your childhood and the influence your family had on you?
From a very young age, I was aware I was being watched. It is a very interesting thing. If you’re not under the spotlight of something, you’re not under the spotlight. You’re living your life. You’re in preschool. You’re in kindergarten. You’re in high school. Very early on, I knew I was being watched. I was like, “They know I’m this,” or, “They know I’m that. I’m being watched.” The trick is that sometimes, you’re overly like, “Don’t say anything,” because you’re being constantly judged for everything you do. On the flip, it made me comfortable to be in the spotlight of the world.
A lot of people say the number one fear in the world is public speaking. There’s nothing more fearless to me than public speaking. If I was in a room and someone said, “Do you think you could do better?” I’d say, “Give me the mic.” I’ll be like, “No problem.” That set me up for what I want to be my life’s work, which is that I want to travel the world, get to know people, get to know different cultures, and get to go to different situations from land, air, sea, and all that to make this world a better place. It’s almost like I’ve been prepped for it in some way. Some people go to college or things like that to learn a vocation. I feel like life has prepared me for this moment.
When you talk about how you knew you were watched at a very young age and you were comfortable from the beginning, when was it at a point or what age did you find, “This is uncomfortable,” or, “There are adults who might be approaching me. This is an uncomfortable situation. No one is supporting me.”
I learned that very early. I’ll give you an analogy that will hit hard in regard to the concept of fame. It happened at least 100 times in my life, whether I was standing next to my sister or standing next to my dad, where they would introduce me to somebody and the person would never take their eyes off them, shake my hand, and not even say hello. It’s like, “I don’t exist here. They focused on your forwardness. You have to address me. Other than that, I don’t exist.”
I’m glad you brought that up. It also created another thing, which is not being seen. That is something Mother Teresa talks about. Loneliness is not being seen or not being given any form of attention. That’s the worst form of poverty. I believe I’m quoting her right that loneliness is the worst form of poverty. Having asked that question, I did feel a lot of times in my life very much alone in the overallness.
Not being seen or given any form of attention—that’s the worst form of poverty.
In that, I was also trying to find myself because, for a long time, I assumed I’d be an actor, a director, a writer, or something like that because that was the family business. I was like, “Since it’s the entertainment business and this is what they do, then this is what I’m going to do.” I still have passion in regard to being like that but as time went on, I realized that my destiny was much more designed in advance without me even knowing it. I want to give you a little explanation of that.
My mom gave me the name Haven, which I love. My moniker is Safe Haven. That’ll be my future, my brand, and my everything. When I was a little child, I fell in love with the Peanuts cartoon. If you all know the cartoon well, there’s a character named Linus and he has this blue blanket. That was the character I loved. It’s on my key chain to this day, this little blue blanket of Linus. You have the blue blanket, which Charles Schultz has stated the greatest thing he ever did was create a dictionary term, which is the security blanket. You have the security blanket, you have safe haven, and then you have this desire to protect children. That was my destiny from even being a little child.
My father was at an event a few years ago in regard to human trafficking of children and maltreatment. He got up at Pepperdine at the end of the event and said, “Thank you to this wonderful event. Thank you for inviting me,” and all that stuff. The last line he said, and we have a clip of it somewhere which I haven’t seen but I was there when he said it, was, “My son here has been protecting children since he was a child.” I had to find the realization that that was my destiny. Once I realized that, my life took off.
I love that. What did he mean by that when he said as a child you were protecting other children?
I believed that he witnessed me protecting children, whether on the playground or bullying. Kids are kids. They take sides in cliques and whatever you want to call it. He constantly witnessed me getting in between a bit. I’ve done that my whole life. I could go off on examples. I remember being in college and I was very good friends with the new friend of the quarterback. I was the it person for him. His best friend was with us. This was in college. I was 18 or 19 years old. I saw the football player not physically assaulting the girlfriend but mentally. I was like, “He’s going to do something to that girl.”
I called it out to his best friend. I said, “If you don’t say something, I’m going to say something.” He was like, “He gets like that. He’s getting ready for the game. He’s got too much testosterone.” I said, “If you don’t say something, I’m going to say something.” The guy didn’t say anything so I said something. The rest is history. I’ve been doing that my whole life. When something’s inappropriate, I’ll stop the room and say, “I’m going to address this.”
I even brought up an example before the show. I’ve lost four people in my life to suicide. These were people very close to me. I remember a couple of years ago, I said, “That’s it. I can’t handle it. No more.” A big shout-out to anybody going through suicidal ideation or anything like that. Reach out to me. I don’t want that to ever happen again.
The last one I remember very specifically was a few years ago before the Super Bowl. I was the darling of this party. There was this party and I was going to be there. Everybody was so excited I was going to be there. I got the call that this person I knew had killed himself and I bolted. It was an amazing reaction that so many were shocked that I left the Super Bowl party. I was like, “I left the Super Bowl party.” It turned into not just me going. It turned into me showing up.
She had a younger sister who I’d never met. I knew her but didn’t know her younger sister. It turned into her father returning because of the suicide from a business trip. Within two minutes, I knew that they were both molested by him. We went for a nice little walk and I got him to admit what he did and he was arrested. You never know when things are going to happen. Instead of saying, “I’ll do it tomorrow,” or, “Let’s watch the game,” or, “You can’t do anything now,” no. I’m going to go.
Do you know what struck me when you were describing your early years? Thank you for what you do and for being the immediate person to close that case. When you talk about not being seen and being invisible, when we talk about this area of being vulnerable to abuse or human trafficking, these people somehow know the vulnerable people. They’re almost designed to seek out those people who are vulnerable and who are not seen. It is because of your experience that you’re able to also see it in other people and protect them or help them.
Understanding The Root Of Child Trafficking And Abuse
I love that you put those two together because it’s important. It’s true. I know what it’s like to be unseen. You’re right. It’s like, “No one’s going to listen to this person and no one’s going to listen to that person. I’m going to listen to both of them and then everybody’s going to listen.”
I love that. You’ve become the leading figure in advocating for child trafficking as far as I could see. What has inspired you to be dedicated to this cause? Where did it all start? Is it from these friends of yours that were committing suicide and this was your initial experience with it? What was that that brought you down this line?
It started several years ago. I had always been focusing on youth-related things. It was very personal to me because I went through a lot in high school at that time and specifically in college. It was a personal, “Before they become adults, I want to give them a chance to correct some of those things that life has done to them, and then they can thrive as adults.”
Several years ago, a friend of mine called me out of the blue and said, “I’ve got about eight girls or so. They're staying at my house. Some are runaways, some are pregnant, and some were kicked out of their house. I’m going to take them to a park tomorrow. I know you’re good at inspiring youth. Would you come and talk to them?” I said, “Sure. Which park? Tell me when and I’ll be there.”
I showed up and talked to all of them like a group and then talked to each of them one-on-one. I tell this story all the time. This is one of those stories I want to tell whether you're a youth or an adult. A simple phone call asking to help eight girls changed my life forever. My hope that day was to change their lives but it changed my life.
I went and I spoke, and a few months later, I got a phone call. She said, “There’s a woman. I don’t believe she’s crazy but she won’t stop calling. She says, “I need to thank James. He saved a program that saves thousands of children every year. I want to thank him.” My immediate response was, “She probably has me confused with somebody else because I didn’t save a program but I’ll talk to her because I don’t think you would lie about something like that.”
She gets on the phone and we’re talking. Her name’s Kimberly. She is a good friend of mine to this day. She always calls me Mr. Haven, which is always fine. She never calls me James. We joke about that all the time. I love that. She’s a wonderful person. My point is, she said, “Here’s what happened. I was charged with saving a forensic program at this hospital and they work with the DA. Some are out of San Diego, Child Protective Services, the detectives, and everything else. With that forensic work, they have a 96% conviction rate to get the kids out of there. Sometimes, the kids don’t even have to be on the stand and everything else.”
I was like “First of all, that’s an extraordinary program. What you’re talking about, what exactly happened?” She said, “I was reading The San Diego Union-Tribune paper and there was a cover story of you inspiring youth. I read the story. I’m a mom and my ears were on fire. From that, I ended up calling everybody all over town that the program is saved forever. I was like, “Whoa.”
After I got off the call with her, I called my friend and said, “I don’t understand. How did whatever I said to all the girls get on the cover of The San Diego Union-Tribune?” She goes, “One of the girls’ father is the editor-in-chief. When you were talking to her one-on-one, she recorded it and sent it to her dad.” I was like, “Whoa.”
The point of that is it led me to then go to work. I thought I was focusing on youth and wanting to get them ready for high school graduation and the workforce if they don’t go to college or preparing them for college or whatever and deal with the stuff with their childhood before they get there. All of a sudden, once that happened, I went way back in time. All of a sudden, I was like, “We got to get to the children full-speed.”
I learned about the ACE studies, which are the Adverse Childhood Experience studies. I learned about the foster care system, which is back to human trafficking and stuff like that. I learned about all these different things like fetal alcohol syndrome if it’s not being diagnosed and everything else. I went to work and got trained in trauma and mental health.
That led me back to the child and saying, “Whether you are in an abusive home or whether you are being human trafficked, child abuse, by and large without question, will affect you the rest of your life if it’s not addressed.” That’s my focus. Since child trafficking and whatnot is the fastest-growing crime in the world, it’s only a matter of time before it passes drugs. And then we have the ultimate problem on this planet. I want to stop that and go the other way before it hits that. That’s another part of the focus. It’s so immediate.
That reminds me of a conversation you and I had where you were explaining trafficking pre and post. Where do you fall in line with that?
I like to call myself the pre. I’m all about being the pre. I use this analogy all the time because it’s a perfect analogy. You go to a drugstore and there’s a phrase. We all know the phrase, which is, “For the temporary relief of.” I hate that phrase. It’s like, “We’re going to keep taking medications. They’re doing whatever for the temporary relief of.” I don’t want you to have the temporary relief of. I don’t want you to ever have the problem to begin with. I want you to be healthy.
If there are children who aren’t getting proper nutrition, they’re going to be much more prone to getting Type 2 diabetes, and that causes issues. You then have obesity. You have all these things. I’m the guy that’s like, “Let’s focus on our children. They’re going to get a medical exam. They’re perfectly healthy.” Leaving that exam, whether it’s the doctor, the parents, or the schools, we should all be saying, “I want to keep that kid as healthy as they can be.
Not a Band-Aid fix, but something that is preventative long-term.
100%. Back to trafficking, I have this big thing, which Katie might get in a second. I want to travel to all 50 states and I want to give parents, number one, because they’re the first line of defense to protect their children, schools, town halls, governors, churches, and businesses all those tools to say, “This is real. They’re coming after our kids. They groom them early, but at the key age of thirteen and up, they’re coming after our kids.”
We need to give them all their prevention tools, including what to look for when you’re being groomed to be trafficked. With my hand, four fingers go down and I am putting my thumb across that. If you learn this, that says you’re being human trafficked. That’s it. Imagine if every kid in every school learned. Already, you changed the world. You could be in a high school and do that. You could be in an airport and do that. You could be anywhere and do that. Whoever’s the lead adult should go, “That’s it. Stop. They’re being human trafficked,” or, “They’re dealing with a human trafficking situation.” When they go home at night or in the morning, you changed their world. That’s what I want to do, is prevent all that.
They're coming after our kids, and we need to give them all the prevention tools, including what to look for when being groomed for trafficking.
Fighting Child Trafficking: Organizations, Advocacy, and the Power of Awareness
Can you tell us a little bit about the organizations that you work with and what you are doing specifically for trafficking?
Yeah. One of the organizations I work with, she’s one of my mentors. She's been doing this for 40-plus years. Her name is Dr. Astrid Heger from VIP, which I love because we think of VIPs as a very elite phrasing. It stands for Violence Intervention Program. She’s been doing this for 40 years. She is a pioneer in this field of child abuse and changing the game. One of them was that she fought to say that in a case, the prosecution and the defense both do not get exams of the child. It is one exam for both so the child is not retraumatized. That’s one of the things she’s done.
She’s fought through different cases throughout the years, all the most infamous child abuse cases. She’s been a part of trying to end them or put them away and stuff like that. That’s one of the number ones. She works with very big people. Everybody knows her. She’s known by presidents. That’s one of the organizations that I work with.
The organization out of San Diego, which is the one that has the forensics, is another one. That’s Palomar, which is an amazing program. There’ll be other ones that I know to add to that that will come my way as I go forward because some of this stuff has to be stealthy. I love working with detectives who take this seriously in all cities. The DAs have been great.
There is one case that I want to bring up quickly that’s one of the most infamous cases. A lot of people know about it. It’s the Turpin case that was out of Riverside. That was the thirteen children that were chained to their beds and no one did anything for many years. You can watch some of it on Diane Sawyer. There’s an expose of it.
What I’m getting at is they lived in this area called Monument Park. It’s stunning to see the area of this community. It has no trees at all. What I mean by this specifically is any house in that area, if there’s any light at night, you’d probably see it in the distance. At times, there’s reporting of the children being marshaled at 1:00 in the morning and no one did anything. Nobody said, “This is inappropriate.” Nobody said anything. I understand. I know how this stuff works. They get afraid they’re going to get in trouble and stuff like that. They could have called anonymously if they knew. That’s one of those things they do at ball games and stuff like that. That’s one of the things I want to perfect. If you see something inappropriate, text anonymously, “This house, I’m very concerned about.”
What ended up happening in that story, which is very important, is the hero became the sixteen-year-old girl who snuck out of the house one day. It’s probably the most infamous 911 call I’ve ever heard in my life. She calls 911. She’s talking, and at the end of the call, they say, “We have a police officer coming to you.” I’m not making this up. She goes, “What’s a police officer?” It’s unbelievable. You can’t believe it.
All respect to this police officer but everything he said to Diane Sawyer, and you can see it in the clips, he was like, “I thought she was a runaway. I thought I was going to take her home.” Luckily, that girl had taken that phone and taken snapshots of her fellow siblings in bed with chains. Otherwise, who knows what would’ve happened? She would’ve been a runaway brought back to the house and it might still be going on. It’s that type of training, that type of awareness, or that type of understanding that I want communities to know about. If they see something inappropriate, let’s all be on point and be re-educated about that. Everybody I mentioned, be up to speed on this. This happens all across the country.
There’s not a one-fix-all or not one thing. As parents, is there advice you could give them? I’m a single mom with a 10 and 13-year-old. That’s right around that age. I have a girl and a boy. In Salt Lake City, I was out and someone was looking at my daughter. It didn’t feel right. What is the advice you would give parents, moms and dads, or broken families? What would be the number one advice to give them?
Raising Awareness And Recognizing The Threat
Without question, the number one advice is to say it happens in every city and every state in the country. We’ve seen too many movies where it’s a great movie but it’s in a foreign land. It’s an American family in a foreign land. There’s like this, “It’s not here. It doesn’t happen in your house two doors over.” Imagine the same movie two houses over. It’d be a different movie and even scarier. Think about it. All I’m saying is that number one, it happens everywhere.
The number two advice is there are certain ages. Thirteen is the beginning of it. They groom you early. The number one thing is to remember that they’re looking for your kids. We all have heard that infamous phrase, “Don’t talk to strangers,” or, “Don’t take anything from strangers,” or whatever it is, but look for those signs and warn your children. There’s no person that should be sitting in a mall, comes up to a 13 or 14-year-old girl and says, “Do you want to be a model?” That’s not how it’s done. That’s going to be a problem. Tell your children in advance, “People will approach you throughout your life. Thirteen is when it kicks in.” Warn them about that.
To go a little further down the line, also, in college. I’ll be very careful how I say this. I’m not saying the college boyfriend is the predator. I’m saying the guy acting like the college boyfriend is the predator. A lot of times, they will get you in that. They’ll hang out at colleges. They’ll hang out at places. They’ll seduce you in those ways. They’re a trafficked person in the making.
I have a problem with the prevalence. No one knows about the prevalence and nobody knows what to spot. From you even telling me this, I’m like, “I had no idea. No one has ever even told me that.” I talked to two other people who are involved in human trafficking and they say the same thing. They say, “No one knows what to spot.” From the 2 problems I see, 1) Why don’t people know? Why aren’t people aware of these different signs of things to track and look for, and why don’t people know about the prevalence of this happening? Why isn’t it on the news? What’s happening here?
Lack Of Public Awareness And Systemic Gaps
There are two ways to look at that. One is that the people that can be telling them don’t know. For a slight chance of whatever, I’ll give the benefit of the doubt. It’s that the people that should be telling them don’t know. There’s that. I’m going to use an old-school analogy because they don’t do it anymore. In the old school, there used to be where when you got a bag at a baggage claim and you went to the sliding doors, there was someone who sat on the stool and would look at your bag and your ticket thing, the little sticker thing, and make sure that was your bag. They don’t do that anymore. A lot of things have also been cut is my point. My point is we live in a more digital, more dangerous, and more whatever world, and yet we’re doing less to do it.
We live in a more digital, more dangerous world, and yet we're doing less and less to address it.
I’ve said this before. I’ll use the airports to make a quick analogy. If there was a serious bust at the airport in a normal TSA line and, all of a sudden, they notice 4 or 5 people are being trafficked, that’s a crime scene. They’re not ready for that. The people working there have not been trained to be raided. They know what human trafficking is. What I’m saying is there’s not enough protocol to clearly be ready for such a thing and then where to take them.
We have places like prayer rooms. I saw breastfeeding rooms. We have dog rooms. We have all those rooms in the airports but nothing is going to be for public dealing. I’m saying there’s no place in the airports to take people who are being human trafficked and there’s no specific person at the airport who handles that directive. It’d be like, “This is what we’re used to, but if we get to a situation of human traffic, this is the protocol. You two come with me. We do this. We take them here.” They don’t have it. It’s stuff like that that becomes part of the complexity.
Why I’m setting you up with this point is that’s why it’s not addressed. If it’s addressed, then they’re going to have to do something about it. It sounds weird the way I said that but I’m being serious. They have to do something about it if it’s addressed. It’s like, “Don’t talk about that now. We’re not ready to deal with that.” We’re not ready to deal with it, sadly.
It happens a lot in airports. I know that you’re an expert in knowing all these things. What are some things that people can look at or identify a trafficking situation happening? As a parent or a mom if I’m going through an airport, are there certain signs that I can look for?
I’ll go out of order here. One of my favorite examples is a contest. A lot of times, people win a contest from another country or something like that. I’ll start outside. You won a contest. There may be a group of girls and they look all dressed in certain uniforms. All their paperwork checks out but nobody calls the contest people to find out if the contest even exists. That’s one of those things that is at the top.
The biggest thing in airports is there are certain behaviors that you can’t fake. Children don’t lie. If you take the time to watch children with adults in airports, you will see that something seems off. You’ll notice it. If you notice that, something is usually wrong. Something is very wrong. I want to live in a world where there’s concern. You watch that child and that adult and the child can even be shaking in the chair next to the person. You never know what you’re watching but something’s off. Something seems like this is not your normal situation. There should be an easy way, which is part of the work I want to do in the future, to report the concern without question.
If that child or children could learn that little hand sign thing, that would also be life-changing. I want to add to that. That means people who work the terminals, and when I say work, the people who work at The Coffee Beans and Starbucks, need to know those symbols. That means the janitors need to know symbols. Once you get past the TSA or once you get into the airport, it’s pretty much the airline. What are the airlines teaching their people or the people who license out their shops? Everybody should be in on this.
This is an international or domestic airport. There’s more trafficking in airports because it’s the fastest way to distribute human beings, and that’s human trafficking. If airplanes are the fastest, that’s number one. If there is the Port of Los Angeles, that’s another thing. If there are interstate highways, that’s another thing. The fastest is airplanes. That means we have to be very diligent.
There’s more traffic in airports because it's the fastest way to distribute humans—and that's human trafficking.
Overseas people are trained to do behavioral.
That’s true.
That’s a protocol they have internationally. Here in the US, I don’t think it’s as common.
It’s not only not common. It’s not been unleashed. That’s the other way to put it. It’s almost like it doesn’t exist. It exists very minimally.
Can I get personal for a sec? Do you have kids?
I have a very interesting piece of information that was not released until the 1st day of 2025. We kept it private as long as we could but I’m proud to say this. I’m married to the love of my life and she has a daughter, so I have a stepdaughter. I have a little beautiful stepdaughter and I’m happy.
I want to hear from you because you have also been a great uncle. If I’m reading that correctly, you helped your sister with her kids and helped them have that male role model. I want to know. As you are a dad and raising kids, how are you protecting them? What are your concerns as a dad?
First of all, because I’m trained in all this, and I wish every father would be trained in being the male protector, I am aware of the schools she goes to, her friends, and the people that come into her life. This will be as she grows. It doesn’t take much. It’s an awareness thing. I’ll get back to being a father in a segment. When I went to a park not too far from where I live, they had this sign and it was deteriorating. I kept going to the park over and over again. I said, “Who do I talk to? There’s a sign here that’s important.” It says, “Adults not accompanied by a child are prohibited.” That’s it. It’s a very simple sign. It’s a specific section code. I kept saying, “I protect children. I want this thing replaced.” I got very upset and they finally replaced it.
The reason I bring that up is because that sign had been deteriorating for years. I wasn’t a parent for years. I’m putting it out to the men out there. Somebody else could have said, “Look at that. That’s deteriorating. I should talk to someone in the park.” That’s all it took. It was going over to the park guy and saying, “There’s a sign in the park and it was dilapidated. It said, “Adults not accompanied by a child are prohibited.”
I wasn’t a father at the time when I saw that sign deteriorating. I was a citizen going, “This is near a park where little children are playing. This sign is deteriorating.” When I say deteriorating, it must have been deteriorating for over ten years. It was white almost. It was red letters. I didn’t stop until they replaced it, and finally, they’ve replaced it. That’s my biggest analogy.
If I see a kid jumping out of a car while the other little child or baby is still in the car with the mom and the kid starts to run, I keep an eye on that kid because if that kid runs straight, I’m going to go get them. It is little things like that. Be aware. You don’t have to be the father, the mother, or whatever. Protect the kids. Keep your eyes open. That’s one of the things I do naturally because it’s what I do. That would be my advice to all parents but also what I do in my life.
Just be aware. You don’t have to be the father or mother—just protect the kids. Keep your eyes open.
Whether it’s my own family or my own friends, I’m always trying to be that person who instills in children how great it is to be a child and how great it is to be a young adult. For my first name, I was named after Dr. James Barry who created Peter Pan. I do have that child-like wonder. I’ve been through my own stuff, but I don’t want adults to ever lose, even though it seems like we lose it sometimes, that ability to be passionate about joy and feel full of that wonder.
Innocence is one of the last things that you can fight for in life because once it’s gone, it seems to be gone. I don’t want any kids getting hurt running across the street, but there’s freedom. The metaphor that a child does not think they’re going to be hurt, there’s something about that. They feel like, “I’m invincible,” at a certain age, metaphorically. I don’t want them getting hurt. I’m saying that feeling is amazing. That feeling of having an opinion or that feeling of going, “Is that Mickey Mouse?” That energy that can take over you, I love that. I’m very protective of innocence and the joy of children.
Sadly, even if it has happened, which we’re talking about, I still want to be able to help instill in them that they can overcome these things. It’s so important for them to overcome these things because in many cases, their parents still have never overcome these things. That’s why their parents, in many cases, the ones that have the difficulty, have never overcome. Hopefully, you will be the generation or whatnot that can overcome these things and then in turn have a healthier life, which in turn means healthier children.
Sometimes, I wonder about what happened to that community neighborhood watch. Where is that neighborly feeling of like, “I got your kid. I am watching him. Let’s change that sign. That lighting is off.” I feel like everyone’s in their own little cave or tunnel and not caring and connecting with one another.
Sadly, we know the answer to that question. We’re doing an episode about it. I’ll answer it with a simple thing. I get upset every time this happens, and I do it on purpose. I can’t tell you how many people are looking at their phones and walking right into you. It’s one thing to be seated at a table and one thing to be walking down the streets, staring at something, and banging into people. They’re not paying attention. That’s a phone. That’s the visual presence of another human being not paying attention, let alone protecting our children or walking into a car. We’re not paying attention. I’m very glad you brought that up. We live in a society now where we’re distracted.
That brings us to the digital world. Do you have any advice on what you would tell parents on the safety of the digital world and trafficking and what’s going on there?
The Role Of Technology And Digital Safety
100%. It’s going to get more advanced. I can’t say what I’m working on yet because we’re in the early stages, but we’re going to have some very big things in the future in the digital world that will help protect children throughout the world. I’m excited about that. This is not even a shout-out to Apple but I remember Apple in their operating system 17 added something for parents. It’s something that notices nude imagery and blurs it. You can also turn it off. It’s the default setting.
What I’m saying is that even knowing that exists, that there’s something on our phones in the default setting that can make it where imagery of that nature we don’t want our young children to see has a blurred thing. It’s fantastic that they created that. If more companies could say, “We hear it. We hear what’s going on. We can help create different safeguards in different ways.”
Also, parents in general. To add another point, I know in Europe, they do this. This is more of the internet altogether. I heard that they have all of that prepared to protect children. As an adult, whether you have children or not, you have to decide, “I’m an adult so this is for me..” All of it’s there, and then it’s your decision of how it’s utilized. I’m the pre-guy, so I love this. Instead of playing the catch-up game of saying, “We need to add something to our computer. We need to add something to our phones. We need to add something to our iPads,” or whatever, it’s better to know it exists. Parents have that capability.
My hope and challenge to tech companies and whatnot companies is that they will say, “We hear you. We’re going to have these things for you and the key is to let you know it exists.” I love Apple because I’ve always been a huge fan of Steve Jobs. I have loyalty to that. I’m glad that they told people that that existed because sometimes, we create these technologies or we’ll create these situations but we don’t tell anybody about it. It’s there but no one knows it. That would be another thing to tell people.
I was reading something and you were a gamer. Is that right? You were into games.
My generation was much at the beginning of it all.
You’ve worked with a lot of teens who are like my kid who is obsessed and addicted.
Wii Sports and all that good stuff.
It’s one thing telling parents, “You need to do this.” What about kids? What took your attention away from the gaming and saying, “This might be harmful.” Where does that maturity come from, and how do you instill that? What resonated with you when you were a teenager or an adult and some of the people you’ve worked with that touched you to say, “Let me back off on hours of gaming.”
I love that question because sometimes, they can do it for days. I use an analogy I use all the time. I’m going back in time, we’ve all seen the little baby in the highchair in the restaurant who’s consumed by the visual of the tech in front of them. And the parents are not even talking. It’s pretty much like this quiet moment. If you watch that carefully, you’re predicting the future. You’re saying, “I want my kid to be doing that all the time,” without saying it because that’s their comfort zone. Their comfort zone is being online all the time.
What I would do is have this conversation like, “We know what the world is now. We have to have very strict standards. You can play for one hour of that. You can do this. You can do that.” Set that standard because once you set the standard, the standard exists. You even have the ability to turn off those devices after a period of time. I’m not talking about walking in the room. AI probably will help do this in the future with parenting. It’s saying, “You get one hour,” and then AI turns it off. It’s like, “You have to do your homework.”
I don’t want to say that technology is going to help people be better parents, but whatever it takes, the idea of saying to let them be consumed by the way it gets consumed is not healthy because it also affects later in life as adults. It won’t be gaming after that. It’ll be other things. They’ll be consumed by that instead of being more with their loved ones, their wives, their husbands, or their children. It’ll consume their time.
It's not to say that technology will make people better parents, but whatever it takes. The idea of letting kids be consumed by it is not healthy."
I don’t want to shame because I am guilty of it.
That’s what I’m trying to say. I love that you asked that question. Back to the phrase of the episode, “The temporary relief of.” It’s too late to say, “You have to do your homework.” I always feel that that’s too late. You’ve been on that thing for two hours. You create hostility and everybody is fighting. You don’t want that. You want to create a situation where you have family time, whether it’s dinner or whatever the situation is. You play on your computer. You have to get your homework done. You create a system where there’s a healthy balance.
I was in the generation that kicked into the gaming world. I did more physical activity than artificial activity. There’s nothing wrong with eSports, but a lot of times, if you said, “How many calories am I burning off in this hour?” It’s nothing compared to playing basketball, baseball, or whatever. If our schools are not going to have P.E., which a lot of them don’t have anymore, you’re creating obesity or of that nature immediately. How many kids are getting exercise every day? That’d be another thing for parents to say, “You can play the games, even the sports games, but you’ve got to get some physical activity. You can’t be all virtual.”
I don’t know if you know with your kids, but my kids want to stay in and play games all the time. It’s because that’s the norm.
That’s the other thing. You said another thing, which is very important. It’s the norm. That’s the difference. Movie theaters used to be the norm and then COVID happened, and then streaming became the norm. It’s very hard to say, “Let’s go back to movie theaters.” Even if it was not crazy expensive, it doesn’t matter.
If that’s not the norm anymore, it’s like, “Why am I going to a movie theater? I’ll wait until it’s on streaming.” You’re right. The norm is part of the problem. If we say, “It’s normal that this. It’s normal that,” that’s not true. It’s what we’ve allowed to be normal. It’s abnormal. It’s unhealthy. It’s not what we should be doing.
It’s important to know that every family can create their own norm too. You can take that power as a family to create the norm that you expect, which is pivotal in my life at least.
Back to the point I said about those original parents, I have nothing against it because I get it. It’s hard to be a parent. That time of a child communicating with you, trying to get your attention, and feeling you’re not giving them attention, if you’re going, “It keeps them quiet,” be careful with that wording. Those early formative years of getting that type of, “You’re ignoring me,” that little kid who doesn’t learn that ability to communicate, who knows? That might be the kid screaming at the top of his lungs to get attention later. You have to be very careful with that.
You touched on how you were looking at some tech advances maybe relating to human trafficking. I don’t know if you’re going down that route future-wise.
Using AI And Technology To Combat Human Trafficking
Katie knows where I’m going here. I’m working with someone that we both know, but I don’t know if I can go into detail so I’ll keep it simple. We’re going to be making some very big tech advances in the AI world to protect children in the most extreme way. It’ll become commonplace.
Tech and AI are not going to go anywhere. We have to find out the good of tech and AI to combat what’s happening with the bad.
AI is great. People get so threatened by AI replacing humans and I go, “That’s not the right sentence structure. The right sentence structure is, “I have a phone I’m using right now that I could be using, I hope, to tune in to this show to help people,” or, “I could be using it to look at the news.” It depends on how you use technology. How are you using it?
It’s important for moms, dads, and adults to know that there’s hope out there. It’s so overwhelming as a parent figuring out the technology and different generations trying to get ahead of it, which you can’t. It sounds like there is hope on the horizon.
I could not agree more.
Looking ahead, where do you want to take your work on child trafficking? What are your long-term goals?
50-State Tour And Global Awareness Campaign
There is going to be a big event on March 20th, 2025, which I’m very excited about. From that will be the launching of a 50-state tour and an anti-human trafficking campaign that’ll be, hopefully, the biggest in the world. Anybody can get behind it. I’m wearing a little bracelet. It’s a simple concept. If we all had a little bracelet that said a very specific phrase that can help end, prevent, or create awareness or conversation to end human trafficking, that’s my goal.
I’ll do 50 states and then I want to travel to Europe and Asia. We all have very unique traits, but I’m one of those people where if someone says they want me to come to Russia, I’m coming. There’s no pause. There’s no like, “I can’t.” I’ll come to Russia. I’ll come to China. I’ll come anywhere. I look forward to getting the word out so people have the tools to prevent why is this and why is that.
The first question is they’re not trained to teach that so they don’t even know what to say about these things. Number two, they don’t yet have the capacity to deal with the outcome if they start talking about these things. As a quick example, imagine if we taught travelers in airlines and terminals what to look for. Imagine if they had 100 people or 200 people that were outed at that moment. TSA is not ready for that. They’re not even closely equipped for that.
The best analogy would be a jail cell or something like that in a small town. If those cells are full, there’s a directive given to everyone that says, “We can’t arrest anybody because we have no place to take them. You can give them a ticket or whatever else but we don’t have the space for them.” That’s the other idea. You can’t arrest them if you don’t have the area to take them.
With your 50-state tour, are you going to be doing events in each state? When are you coming to Utah? What does this look like for you?
It’s still being worked out even though my mind’s pretty fast, but I want to do whatever it is. I want to do a similar thing to each state even though some states have oceans and some states have more mountains. I’m using the analogy of geography. Each state will have its own concept of protocols. That’s a side note.
My real dream is to do something like this. I’ll talk to people in advance who will advise me on this. Let’s say I did a one-hour prevention thing each day in each state. I’ll choose Los Angeles, which is where I’m from, to use a quick analogy, I want to speak in a room. The room does not have to be large or small. It’s a concept of a space of origin. I’d like to speak in a room at a college campus, let’s say, and have that space fully lit up with cameras. What I’d then like to have is it’s streamed to the entire state. I’m not saying, “Hello, Los Angeles.” I’m saying, “Hello California.”
I don’t know what time that would be, and this is the only thing that matters. Scheduling is key. The rest, which I’ll tell you in a second, will be placed in every set. Do I do that recording at night and it is potentially streamed to everybody but people in high schools and places like that might not get to see it until the next day when they’re in school or do I do that early in the morning at 9:00 or 10:00 and everybody’s aware of it?
The governor’s aware of it. Everybody is aware, “We’re going to have a one-hour session on prevention tomorrow.” School districts are aware. It’s streamed to every single school because it’s more focused on school in that regard. A lot of people go to school at 8:00 in the morning or 3:00, something in that timeline. That’s the only thing that I would find out based on the children, teens, and whatnot to hear.
Other than that, I would want to meet with the mayor of the state of Los Angeles. I would want to meet with city council members. If the governor’s around depending on where I am, I would want to meet with the governor of each state. They’re all lined up. I would do this over the day. LA is my town so this is easy for me to say this. I’m going to get the studio executives. I’m going to get whatever that town’s businesses are. They’re all going to go into a room and I’m going to say, “These are the protocols we need to have on movie sets, sound stages, or whatever to address human trafficking.”
I want to meet with churches and different religious groups. I want to meet at the town hall, which should be more of the people of the city. Those would be moms, dads, small mom-and-pop shops, and things like that. I want to do that in every single state. I’ll start at 6:00 in the morning and work until 8:00 at night, and then I’ll go to the next major city and do it all over again. To address it as each state is unique and similar but there are unique things that I want to focus on. Each state can have the proper protocol.
Most of what I’m doing is recommendations. It’ll all be documented but most of it is recommendations. They can follow through and say, “We want to implement that.” I want to also address the airports. At some point, we’ll have a uniform system. I look forward to working with Homeland Security on this and whatnot. Once they’re here, the uniform system, maybe I don’t have to go to every airport in every state, but I have no problem going to every airport in every state to do a quick overreaching.
It could be like the FAA or something like that.
Exactly. When I go to each state, I’m there for them. I have no problem saying, “We need you to come to the airport.” The Port of Los Angeles is another great example. The Port of Los Angeles is a very big port. We all know this. I’ve been there. There was nothing wrong. It’s a very big port. They have a big job. They have these huge ships that come in and all this stuff. You see the crate taken off, you see it put on the eighteen-wheeler, and then they take off. You go, “This thing needs to have a thermal scan.” It should be standard. If there’s anything improper, that crate should be opened. That’s it. It’s that simple.
If that’s too late in the game because I understand the ship is a big part of all these things, then when the ship comes in, there should be a proper scan of all the crates still on this ship that haven’t been taken off. As long as they’re all cleared and the ship is cleared, then you take the crates off. There’s no protocol yet that does that. There’s nothing like that of its kind. That would be another thing that I would want to see in the cities that have ports and stuff like that.
You touched on legislation a little bit. Is there something where you probably want something statewide? You said city council. Is there one type of law or something unique for each state?
Arguably, the greatest abolitionist in America that we know is Frederick Douglas. I happen to know a direct descendant of his. There is legislation that is going to be brought forth in the Senate and the House. That part of that legislation will open up the ability to do what we’re talking about. It’s very interesting you brought that up. To get that bill passed, which is the goal in the next couple of months or whatever will unleash that capability.
Where can people find more information on the 50-state tour?
Remember those three words, 50-state tour, human trafficking, James Haven. I’m going to be talking to a PR person about the event on the 20th of March 2025. That’ll be one of the questions I’ll ask. I’ll say, “We have to have an immediate website either launched that evening or the very next day so everybody can either sign up for updates of when I’m going to be on tour.” It’s like, “James is going to be in Ohio on this day.” If they want to get tickets to the event, if it’s a 1,000-seat theater, it’ll probably sell out pretty fast, but that’s not the point. You can still have tickets to the streaming thing.
You can watch the progress on Instagram or whatever I end up using on my actual tour, which I also want to do. That’s one of the other things I want to do. Every morning, which could be 6:00 in the morning or whatever, I want to do a shout-out to everybody. There’s no one state at that point. It’s going to be like, “Everyone who’s been following me on this tour, I want to tell you a couple of things, maybe some anecdotes that have happened in the last 24 hours, interesting things I’ve noticed, how I’m doing, how things are going, and stuff like that.” You can also sign up for that as part of the tour.
You are onto some pretty cool things. I’m super excited to see and hear all of it. Is there anything that you wish people understood more deeply about the issue?
The biggest thing is no one’s immune. That’s the opening thing. I talk to a lot of people who think they’re doing everything in their life. It’s not just money, power, or whatever, but they’re doing everything in their world to make sure that their children are safe. They know they’re talking to me, so I feel like they’re trying to impress me.
About halfway through the conversation or so, I’ll say, “This child you’re referring to, are they ever going to date someone?” They go, “What?” I go, “You got to hope that the person that they’re going to date has had a similar protection. To say it like that is one thing but to have that child be able to be protected the way you’re referring to means you have to hope the other child has that awareness. The other city, if there’s a production in the city, has that awareness. There’s a hope in that that goes too far.” The biggest thing is no one is immune to human trafficking. We have to be very diligent about that.
No one is immune to human traffickers, so we have to be very diligent about it.
This can seem like a daunting topic a lot of the time. What motivates you on difficult days?
I’m going to use another quote from the book that I was named after. The opening line of Peter Pan is my favorite line of all time. I am this person, so it’s a perfect pivot. The opening line of Peter Pan is, “All children but one grow up.” That’s the opening line. Some people could say, “Why only one child?” I don’t take it like that. I take it as I’m a reminder. I will take that mantle. I want to be the one who says, “The reason why I do what I do is because I cannot tell you enough what it feels like.”
I’ve been there in the darkest of cases to see a child who has been abused and then to see a child free, and to realize that the joy that was stolen from them is being given back to them. I’ve been there to see how afraid they are at first. Some people love their animals. It’s a quick analogy for anybody out there who doesn’t have children. You’ll understand this from a dog perspective. If a dog’s been beaten, they’re very afraid. You slowly give them a little food and slowly maybe give them a little touch. Before you know it, they come back to life.
To see that child come back to life is like Peter Pan. If you think of Peter Pan, he shows up to the Darlings’ house in the book and he takes them to this magical place, but they’re coming out of something that is not that awesome. For example, people don’t remember this, but in the Disney cartoon that we all know, the Darling father’s screaming is Hook’s voice. In the real world, it’s, “Go to sleep. I’m angry,” or whatever I am. In Peter Pan’s world, you can take on the father. It’s symbolic to me to stop the abuse.
It’s not that that’s what James Barrie intended, but I do know that he wrote the book outside of an actual orphanage. We know what orphans are like, their upbringing, why they are orphans, and what’s going on there. I also know that he gave all the proceeds of the book through the Great Ormond Orphanage. What an amazing gift.
I also know that the very first performance of Peter Pan was only for children. Take that in. No adults, no elites, nothing. It was for children. Back to that, if I can bring them back their innocence and their joy in some capacity, it lights me up. It makes me so happy that it’s not dark to me because I don’t see them in the pain. I see them in the joy and the joy that they don’t have that they should have returned to them. It’s like that.
You gave me goosebumps. That was wonderful.
That was beautiful. That reminds me of, “Be the one.” I’m pulling up an old article that you wrote in the Huffington Post. There are these astonishing statistics about child abuse and this and that and you said, “Be the one.” Are you the one? We can all be the one in our own ways.
"Be The One" Mentality And Call To Action
I took that from a Mother Teresa quote and then I emulate it all the time. I go, “Be the one.” That's something Mother Teresa said. Gandhi has stated it too. Be the one to change the world. Be the difference in the world. Be that person. That’s what I was saying before about the football game, the Super Bowl, or whatever. All it takes is that one moment, like in the story I told you. It was, “Are you going to say something?” I’m going to say something.” It’s that simple little moment.
If there’s a school shooting, you say, “That’s not going to happen to my little girl’s school. Regarding that school shooting, if I’m all heated, bothered, and whatever, I’m jumping in the corner and I’m going to go to my little girl’s school and say, “Did you hear about the school shooting?” They’re like, “I know. We’re so overwhelmed.” I’m like, “I know. I’m overwhelmed too. That’s not going to happen at this school. What can we do to make this school safe right now?” They’re like, “I don’t know.” I’m like, “Let’s figure it out.” It doesn’t have to be always super fast like that. It’s more of a metaphor.
Responding by feeling but not doing is to me not being the one. Be the one. The person who makes our school safe in this country, that’s a legacy. They’ll ask, “What did that person do with their life?” They made all schools safe. There has not been a school shooting in ten years.” That’s a legacy to me. They’ll ask, “How did he do it?” People will say, “He was a guy in construction, security, and all this other stuff and he decided one day not to go to the ballgame. He went to the school and made it safe. They haven’t had a school shooting in over ten years.” That’s something to cheer about. I don’t need to watch a ball game. That’s my hero right there.
Always do the right thing. Be the one. I love this.
Where could they find more information about you?
Can I say his name, who I’m working with? I want to make sure.
Absolutely.
There’s a guy named Sig. He’s going to hook me up with all the information. Once it’s all there, Katie and Sig, you guys can get it out. Before this thing, you’ll have a plethora of information to know more things and to know what I’m doing and all that good stuff. We’ll keep everybody updated. This is the United States or the world. Whoever it is that’s reading this, you can follow what we’re all doing.
Thank you so much for your time.
This has been extraordinary.
Your success on the 50 States tour, I’m so excited to hear all about it and follow it the whole way through. Thank you again for your time.
Thank you both.
Bye.
Important Links
About James Haven
Producer, Director, Actor, & Child Safety Protection Leader.
Randy's Mission To End Child Trafficking Globally
