What happens when you can no longer pretend the monsters don’t exist? In this deeply moving and necessary episode of Taboo Talk with Sarah, Tyler Schwab—founder of Libertas International—joins Sarah to discuss the raw, confronting, and often heartbreaking reality of child trafficking and exploitation. From witnessing horrors abroad to founding a nonprofit that rescues and rehabilitates survivors, Tyler shares the emotional toll of fighting evil, the resilience of those he serves, and why silence is not neutral. This is not an easy conversation—but it’s one we must have.
✔️ The Moment Everything Changed – A 13-year-old girl in a brothel ignites Tyler’s mission
✔️ The Emotional Toll of the Work – “We fight the monsters most people pretend not to see”
✔️ Rescue Is Just the Beginning – The long road to recovery, justice, and empowerment
✔️ Healing as Liberation – Survivors need more than freedom—they need dignity and self-determination
✔️ How You Can Help – Think globally, act locally, and never underestimate your voice
🗣️ “Silence is not neutral. If you see injustice and say nothing, you’re siding with the abuser.”
🗣️ “I don’t know if I could survive what they’ve survived—but they choose healing every day. That’s real courage.”
🗣️ “I couldn’t save them all. But I could save her. And that made it worth it.”
Tyler Schwab
This episode doesn’t end when you hit pause.
💜 If it moved you, share it.
💬 If it made you think, talk about it.
🛠️ If you feel called to act, start local.
And if you want to support Tyler’s mission, visit libertasinternational.org to donate, volunteer, or learn more.
Because silence is not neutral—and every voice matters.
Sarah Jordan-Ross (00:01) Hey everybody and welcome back to Taboo Talk with Sarah, the podcast that breaks the silence, fosters hope and tackles the tough conversations so you never feel alone. If you're new here, I'm your host, Sarah Jordan Ross. I'm a wife, a mom of three beautiful boys. And I've spent the last 25 years holding space for healing, truth telling and transformation as a remedial massage therapist and wellness coach. Now today's conversation,
just have to warn you, is going to challenge you, inspire you, and possibly shake you up just a little in the best possible way. I'm joined today by Tyler Schwab. He's the founder and president of Libertas International, a nonprofit fighting child sexual exploitation and human trafficking across Latin America. Tyler's work's confronting, necessary, and deeply courageous.
He's one of those rare people willing to go where others won't and fighting for those kids that so often have a blind eye turned to them. Tyler, thank you, thank you for joining us and bringing some light to this much needed conversation. I am so glad you're here.
Tyler Schwab (01:10)
Thank you.
pleasure of mine. I feel like you're a little too nice to me on that intro. I think you're the real hero that raises three boys at 6 a.m. in the morning. I think that's much harder than anything I've ever done. ⁓ but thank you. That's very kind of you.
Sarah Jordan-Ross (01:24)
Yeah
love the mum juggle.
Tyler Schwab (01:32)
Yeah, it sounds like a juggle.
Sarah Jordan-Ross (01:34)
Yeah.
Okay. So I want to start with your story. So I know you were on a mission trip in the Dominican Republic. I'll get you to unpack that a little bit more for us. But what actually led you to this work?
Tyler Schwab (01:52)
Yeah, you know, it's a good question. ⁓ Yeah, like you said, I was on a mission trip to the Dominican Republic and I grew up in just the really rural parts of North America in a place called Wyoming where just, I mean, problems don't happen, I guess. Like big problems don't happen because it's so sheltered. It's so quiet. It's so boring, honestly. And I love those spots. ⁓ But at the same time, yeah, yeah, it can be good. It's, you know, nice, quiet, a lot of beef.
Sarah Jordan-Ross (02:16)
Boring can be good.
Tyler Schwab (02:21)
lot of access to beef and stuff. But no, I did a mission trip when I was 19 just to try to see the world. And I saw the world. saw just how people really live in the developing world. And the Dominican Republic, just the rampant violence against women and children. I thought that I knew what poverty was. And my idea of poverty was just not what the real world looks like.
outside of North America, outside of Wyoming where I grew up. And I would see when I was there, I'd see these little girls, know, 12, 13 years old, and they were just engaging in a lot of weird activity with grown European men, specifically where I was at. I didn't quite understand it, you why would a 13 year old girl be sitting on the lap of like some 60 year old guy from France and be making out with him in public and drinking with him? I was just like, are these girls looking for a husband? Are they gold digging? like, what's their deal?
Sarah Jordan-Ross (03:17)
what's going on.
Tyler Schwab (03:17)
putting the blame
squarely on them, right? Like just not putting any blame at all on the men. And it wasn't until I left that mission trip, went to college and heard a speaker talk about human trafficking exploitation that I realized, ⁓ like those little girls probably had no choice of who they were with that night. They probably had no choice of what kind of sexual acts they were forced to perform that night or that day or whatever it was.
And I was really shook. was really heartbroken because it happened in this place that I fell in love with and I just I came off as so judgmental, know, seeing the situation without knowing the full story. And so I went back to the Dominican Republic. I was just doing some research and the first place I went to is just this hell hole, this hell hole of a brothel where I sat down with this 13 year old kid and, you know, come to find out it her first night in this brothel and she was telling me that she had been forced here, that they took her documents and that she had a debt on her head and that
They threatened her that if she didn't ⁓ sleep with men, that they were gonna go get her little sister who was eight years old at the time. And I just remember just being so heartbroken that I was having that conversation with this little girl in this horrific, horrific place, and that it would, that she was stuck here, essentially. There was nothing that I could do about it. I couldn't buy her freedom. I couldn't sneak her out. couldn't do anything except just buy her dinner and come back the next night to see if she was okay. By that time, I came back 24 hours later.
they'd already moved her to a new spot. She was essentially just lost in the darkness. just, you know, I read about all these statistics, you know, two million kids being human trafficked, 40 million people enslaved across the world, but they were all just numbers. Until I met this one 13 year old kid that was one in two million, and that experience really changed my life and led me to try to do what I'm trying to do today, which is rescue as many as I can, heal as many as I can.
and give them the tools to pick themselves up and move on from that trauma.
Sarah Jordan-Ross (05:14)
And it's so hard when you come face to face with a world that is so completely different to the one you grew up in. Because even here...
those of us in in developed countries, we think we know what poverty is, but it's not until we actually travel that we see, hang on, we're pretty lucky. But I can't remember the stats for America, but I know for Australia, even if we're on unemployment benefits, etc. If we have a roof over our head and food on the table, we're still in the top 1 % of people around the world. ⁓
but we forget about that. So you've come face to face with some pretty awful things now. I read something that you said, we fight the monsters most people pretend not to see. So what's it been like for you doing that day in, day out confronting that darkness? And how do you keep hold of your light in that space?
Tyler Schwab (06:22)
Well, let you know what I figure it out. I guess that's I guess that's the first answer I could give is I'll let you know when I figure it out ⁓ You know, it's a good that's a good that's a good ⁓ That's a great question. You know, I think You know, I grew up in a pretty, you know sheltered spot very safe spot where no one ever hurt me No one ever really did anything to me except, know, maybe swear at me once in a while Something that I thought was, know deeply hurtful at the time But in comparison to like what other people go through it's you know, it's nothing ⁓
⁓ These people are evil. These people that enslave kids and enslave women and enslave men, we get a lot of cases with men as well, they're enslaved. They're just evil. have no regard for human life. Their needs are their own. Their needs are the most important. Their financial gain is the most important. There's this guy, he represents I think just the worst of...
Because as an American from the United States, I feel a great amount of pride in my country and also just a lot of shame because a lot of these people that are coming to abuse the most vulnerable across the world come from the United States. And there's a case that resonated with me a while back. ⁓ It's a guy, he's a US Army veteran. Someone that we would place in our society as a hero. Someone that went and fought for freedom or whatever and he was just an animal.
He was arrogant, he was evil, he abused girls that had special needs, 12 to 16 years old, and if they refused, he would either beat them up or he would drug them. And thank goodness that we were able to help his victims and now he's serving a 15 year prison sentence in Columbia where he was arrested. But it's just, yeah, just drink to that, because he's an evil, evil human being. Even behind bars, he tried to kill one of his witnesses and we had to just intervene to save her life.
You know Australia has the same way. think there's something with developed countries where there's people inside those developed countries that think they have, because they have money, that they have the right to the bodies of the most vulnerable. I think one of the most evil pedophiles in the world, like people can look this guy up, was based in Australia and his name is Peter Scully. He's currently serving time in an Australian jail, or not Australian, in a Filipino jail. But I had an Australian buddy that told me about him and just reading his crimes. They're so horrific. It's something
I don't know what it is with people from the developed world, there's some people in that world that believe that because they have money, they have the right to the vulnerability and the bodies of other people. So I guess, how do I stay sane? I take lot of pride in my self-care. I talk on podcasts with great people. That's always fun.
⁓ I have my own podcast where me and my best friend talk about movies and stories and try to make sense of like the world around us through story. I love to hike, I love to work out, I love to play with my niece and nephew. And I have some Australian buddies actually that live where I live in Wyoming. And there's this really nice Australian bar that we go to that has, I don't drink, but they have some killer chicken wings. And so they take me out, they have some drinks and I have some chicken wings and.
Sarah Jordan-Ross (09:29)
you
Tyler Schwab (09:36)
You know, just this time to just be a human, to just forget about the darkness and just enjoy food and drink with your friends. And you know, this life's not guaranteed. If there's anything I've learned with this work is that your life can be put at risk. The people you care about can leave at any second. And so you just never take a day for granted because you never know when the last day will be the last day.
Sarah Jordan-Ross (09:59)
So all you can do is try and make each day the best that it can be. Now you touched a little on some of those moments of hope where you were able to save people from...
I can't even think of the best word for pulling people out of those situations apart from conquering darkness and evil but I'm sure there's some big moments of hope in amongst that.
Tyler Schwab (10:30)
Yeah, yeah, there definitely is. There's this girl that I helped rescue maybe like six years ago, 2018, seven years ago, something like that. ⁓ eight years ago, it's been a while. But she was 13 when I first rescued her and she was being trafficked by the MS-13 gang ⁓ in Guatemala where she was being sold to different people and it was all run by a local judge in her city ⁓ in this little town in Guatemala.
Sarah Jordan-Ross (10:42)
Yeah.
Tyler Schwab (11:00)
So we went down and we worked with local police. We worked with the US embassy. We worked with all these different agencies and we intervened on her behalf. And ⁓ she was only 13 at the time. I still remember the way she was dressed. She was dressed as if she was like a 21 year old, like out on the town on a weekend. And she was only 13 years old. So just like your brain almost is like messed up where it's like you're dressed like this, but you're only 13. It's something I don't ever want to revisit ever again.
And she hated my guts man. She hated my guts when I showed up because she was like, what are you doing here? Like, what do you want? Like we're doing we're not doing anything illegal, which you know, they were being trafficked. So they were doing anything illegal, but the trafficker was. And you know, just I had to show on my part for one being in a mail that, you know, as a safe person for her to trust in after this rescue and trying to get her back on her feet and everything and.
And we started working together. We started working just those basic needs where, okay, your trafficker's in jail and you're free, but we're gonna live. We're gonna get your water. Do you have any STDs need to be treated? What is your just basic needs and work your way up like Maslow's hierarchy of needs? And we started working our way up, working our way up, working our way up, working our way up. And we finally got to the point where we got her back into school, because her big thing is she always wanted to ⁓ study. She always wanted to.
graduate with her high school class, but because she lacked the financial resources to do that, she ended up being trafficked in this trafficking ring. And so we helped her along that path. And ⁓ when she was graduating, she showed me her ring. She invited me to her graduation. And a lot of the kids, I don't know this is a tradition across the world, but here in North America, the kids that graduate from high school get the date that they graduate inscribed in their ring.
It's a thing. I didn't do it, but I guess it's a thing. And she had a date inscribed in her ring and she showed it to me and I looked at it and I was like, April 8th, 2018, like you're graduating in 2021. I'm like, what did you, you messed up? Yes. Yeah. It was a day that we rescued her, but I was totally oblivious. was like, Hey, you got to take this back. They got the wrong date in there. And she was like, moron. Like it's the day that like I was rescued. And I was like,
Sarah Jordan-Ross (13:08)
It was the day you rescued her.
Tyler Schwab (13:21)
⁓ okay, well that's beautiful. It was awesome. It's the most special ring in the world. And fast forward a couple years, she's studying social work now. She spoke with me at the United Nations a few years back in Vienna about her experience, about her story. And it's just awesome. I know I can't rescue them all. There's two million kids and by the time I'm in the ground, I'll be lucky to have made just a little dent in this. But this little girl, represents one of the two million.
and now she has this badass ring and she got to speak at the UN and she wants to study social work and if we could, if all this effort we put in, all this money we raise, all this stuff that we do and we just get one out, then it makes it worth it.
Sarah Jordan-Ross (14:03)
sometimes that's what it is it's rescuing that one it's making a difference to that one. I've read a story once this man sees a little girl walking along the beach and she's playing and it looks like she's throwing something into the water and he can't quite figure out what is she's doing. As he gets closer he sees that she's actually thrown because he's seen all these starfish on the on the beach. She's throwing the starfish back in.
And he asks her, like, what are you doing? Like, there's no way you're gonna make, you're not gonna be able to save them all. As she picks up another starfish, throws it and says, yep, but I saved that one. And that's, that's what it's about. We, we can't save the world, no, but we can make a difference to one person, to that person that's sitting next to us, to that person that's in front of us, to somebody who hears
our story and then it lets them share their own. We can make a difference. So you mentioned that you took her to the UN. Do want to unpack that a little bit more for us? Because you've worked closely with law enforcement in Latin America and you went to the UN. What kind of impact has that had for you personally but also for your work?
Tyler Schwab (15:29)
You know, that's not a place I ever thought I would be in, ⁓ is the UN. And even when I got there, I felt really out of place, honestly, because I grew up in rural Wyoming, as I've mentioned a few times. So I still have this cowboy in me. the country boy, you see your country habits come out when you're in a room as pristine and as professional as United Nations, even some of my vocab.
Sarah Jordan-Ross (15:43)
Yep. You're a country boy.
Tyler Schwab (15:59)
even like vocab, like how I would cut that word, like they would say vocabulary. I'm just like, know, vocab is just easier and it's, but so you see, you know, stuff that comes out where you're like, ⁓ like I might not belong here. Cause this is so, this is so fancy. This is so, you know, it's, it's the United Nations and, and I met people like at the United Nations in the, in the conference that I was speaking at that had worked their entire lives to get
into that room and to have that microphone passed to them. People in their mid-60s or early 70s, it's just been activists forever that had got themselves in that room. And I was there at 33. And I was like, this is pretty cool. I think I may have made it. I think it's the right word. I think I may have made it. I'm actually making an impact and what I say has meaning. Even when I go up there, there's this country boy that just looks a little bit different.
⁓ When I spoke, people listened and that was really just surreal because I never thought it would be in that type of situation. But the best part of that whole thing was having two survivors there that we helped rescue and to see them come full circle in their journey. Because in this delegation that we had, we had some board members there, we had some donors, we had our accountants, we had the higher-ups of the organization. And then just these two...
survivors, you know, this girl from Columbia that we helped rescue four years ago, this girl from Guatemala we helped rescue seven years ago. And to see them speak and share their experience, then to just see them travel, like get on the trains in Europe and go see these lakes and take these pictures, like experiences that, you know, when you grow up in extreme poverty and you're a victim of serial abuse, like dreams of a European vacation just aren't there. And so when you see them just enjoying life, like that was...
Like the UN was great. Like it's been really good for our foundation. It's been really good for me personally. Just, you know, the cred that goes to like you've been at the UN, you spoke at the UN. But man, like just the pictures that I have are those two girls just doing their thing in Europe and taking these stupid videos for their TikToks and the food they tried and the pictures, you know, all that different stuff. Just seeing them not as survivors and not as advocates, just as European tourists compared to like how we found them and now how we were experiencing there.
through their eyes, how they were experiencing Europe. That was honestly the best part of that whole trip.
Sarah Jordan-Ross (18:28)
Yeah, seeing them get to just be kids and having fun, which is what our children really should be able to do. They should be able to take that kind of freedom and joy for granted. Yet, unfortunately, a lot of children around the world don't get that. So one of the biggest questions I'm imagining my listeners are going to ask is
How can I help? What can I do?
Tyler Schwab (18:58)
Yeah, I imagine your listener base is a lot of people I imagine that are in Australia and probably just around the world. I know you're in that podcast group or there's a lot of people that are in that group. ⁓ I guess the first thing, if you want to help me, ⁓ you can go to our website, libertasinternational.org and there's an option to make a donation, become a monthly donor. You can buy swag, you can download our podcast, you can do all these different things that really help the organization.
financially, get our message out. We're on Facebook, TikTok, Instagram, Twitter, like all the major social media. Just commenting, sharing, and donating, that's a great way to get our message out there of what we're trying to do. And that helps me a lot personally because, I mean, it takes money to arrest these bad guys. It takes money to support law enforcement. It takes resources to support these survivors after the fact. so donations are always appreciated.
Now I understand too, a lot of people ⁓ might wanna give back exactly where they are. And I think ChatGBT is a great tool that, like if you're looking to give back to a human traffic, an anti-human traffic organization based in whatever ⁓ city that you're in, whether it be in Australia, India, wherever, you just throw it into ChatGBT and it will give you five options of places to donate, places to bring blankets to, places to give money to.
which I think is a great way to help, even in your local community. ⁓ For me, specifically, my life changed the first time I met a survivor of trafficking, period. But the first time I met a survivor of trafficking that was being trafficked where I grew up, in my backyard, by someone I knew, I was like, my gosh, how did I miss this? How could I?
You start to play those mind games of like, do I intervene? can't believe I didn't do anything. I didn't say anything. Just wishing you could change the past. And I imagine a lot of people are like that. They feel lot of pride in their hometowns. They feel a lot of pride where they grew up and where they live. And there's always organizations that are working and serving, specifically in women shelters across the world. In the developed world, specifically, places like Australia, like England, United States, Canada.
A lot of the survivors of trafficking end up in women shelters. And so if you're looking to serve trafficking victims in your town, the local women's shelter is a great place to start.
Sarah Jordan-Ross (21:30)
think globally but act locally. And yeah, we quite often think that sort of stuff doesn't happen in our own backyards. But the simple truth is that it does. But then also, and I want to ask you about this, so your work doesn't stop when you rescue these young girls and these women, or even men who've been trafficked.
So you keep helping them until they're no longer needing that kind of help and support. So what does that long-term support look like?
Tyler Schwab (22:06)
Yeah, I think that's the best thing that we do, honestly. Like we, ⁓ in a foundation, like we believe that all of our cases are like victim centered, survivor centered. Because we like people are so nice, like people are so nice and they say really nice things about me and about the foundation and they throw around like the hero word and that's very nice and appreciated or whatever. like the foundation wouldn't exist without the girls who call it home. And so.
Putting the emphasis on like a survivor center program takes the hero mental off like me or my staff or my donors and puts it where it belongs, which is the people that choose to survive this. Because I tell you, like if it was me and I was trafficked for seven years and I'm out and I'm given a chance for a new life, I don't know if I could do it. I don't know if I could overcome that trauma. I don't know if I could overcome what's happened to me. I just think I just give up. And these girls, they don't. Like they keep on going. They keep on living.
That's my favorite thing that we do is that we're focused on the girls that call Libertas home. What it looks like is every girl is a little bit different. So about two years ago, we got a girl in our foundation that was 19 months old. She was abused, raped, and filmed by a police officer from New York City. And when she came to us as a 19-month-old baby, obviously her needs are going to be very different.
That's how I first learned how expensive diapers were. Because it wasn't like, well, what do you want to study in school? What do you want to do? It's like, we got to get you a crib. We got to get you diapers. We got to get you some medications for some stuff she had going on. We just got to take care of your basic needs because you are 19 months old. You are not old enough to take care of yourself. And that's what we did. We just we helped fill those immediate needs and help. Yeah, I mean, she didn't even speak to us really. She was terrified.
Sarah Jordan-Ross (23:52)
Or to tell you what's wrong, really.
Tyler Schwab (23:59)
when she first got us, she's very withdrawn. She didn't speak at all. She always had her head down. And the first time I saw her lighten up a little bit was we've got her one of these little lawn mowers that you push and it has the thing in the middle and it pops up and there's these balls that pop every time you push it. And we got her one and she pushed it and those balls popped and she lost her crap. She lost it. She started to giggle, started to laugh.
Then she learned how to walk at that point and she's pushing this little lawn mower around our office and it's annoying as hell and it's loud. It's just pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop. But she's getting, she's just getting all kinds of giggles out of it. She just thinks it's the coolest thing. And she's just mowing the grass, you know, around our office, around our carpetless office with just marble floors. And she's just having a blast. And for her, like that's what she needed to heal. You know, I didn't know this at the time, but she just needed like someone to give her a free gift, a free toy.
and be like, this is yours. You can make as much noise with it as you want. And no one's going to do anything. Because you're a 19-month-old baby, you can do whatever you want because you're a 19-month-old baby. So for her, that was how we supported her. That's a rarity in our cases. Most of the girls that come to us around 13, 14, 15 years old. And so the first thing we do is, are you safe? Are you safe with your mom, your dad, your uncle, wherever you're living?
and is your trafficker close to you? Does he still have access to you? We work on that situation first to make sure they're safe, they're protected, they have the resources to just be able to breathe freely, which is a really important aspect of their overall healing. ⁓ Making sure just all their physical needs are met as a human being. ⁓ Food, water, shelter, medicine, making sure all those are met. And then once you get past that and they're settled and they're able to breathe a little bit,
you start to have conversations of like, what does your next five years look like? What does your next 10 years look like? What are you hoping to accomplish? Are you a college person? Are you a tech school person? Are you working to do the long game and like be a veterinarian? Or are you looking to do like the short game, get a makeup license and start doing makeup right away? And you know, we've heard ⁓ all sorts of career ideas. You know, we have entrepreneurs in our foundation that started businesses. We have a professional veterinarian. We have a lot of makeup artists. We have Uber drivers. have
all these different types of people in our foundation. And we just listen to what they have to say and what they think. And then we help facilitate the resource to help them accomplish what they want to accomplish in their overall journey. Because we found that a survivor of slavery is truly free when they are financially independent and they're doing it in a dignified way. they have that, that's when we've seen like, these people are truly free from their trauma, from their exploitation, from all these different things.
and we help facilitate access to those resources. And at the same time, on the other end, a lot of these people want their abusers held accountable. And so we bring all parties together, whether it be the United States government, the French government, we just had a French case a few days ago, the French government, the Australian government, the Colombian government, has some kind of stick in the fire, bring them together to hear our girl's story
and then take that information and go get the bad guy, essentially. Because once they've been heard by the law and they know that the person that hurt them is no longer free to do that to them or anybody else, there's a special kind of healing that happens and it's just good for them. And so that's how our program works in a whole and we're with, our program is around two years long and if they need help after them, we can see to help them if they get out, if they decided they're
independent before two years is up. We let them fly on their own, but our program is focused on them and their needs and what they need to accomplish, ⁓ what they want to accomplish in life.
Sarah Jordan-Ross (28:03)
So you really see them for who they are, not just that they've been either a victim or they're now a survivor. You see the person and I think sometimes that's the big part of healing is being seen as more than the trauma that you've gone through or seeing what going through that has brought to you because you can't go through an experience like that and not have it change you.
And I'm glad that you take that next step for them of getting that closure, of getting that bad guy off the streets so that they can't do it again.
and open up a whole can of worms, but what happens when that bad guy is actually one of those people that's supposed to be protecting people? You mentioned a New York City police officer. So.
Tyler Schwab (29:06)
Yeah, ⁓ man, that's a good question. Yeah, yeah, I'd love to. ⁓ Yeah, the police officer, yeah, he was a total dirtbag. And Saul, you know, was the US military veteran. I think it goes to show us, ⁓ just because someone has like a profession that, you know, I think generates some kind of community respect, it doesn't mean you should trust them with your kids, because you still have no idea like what their dark side looks like. Like one of the most nasty people that I've ever helped arrest.
Sarah Jordan-Ross (29:06)
Do you wanna unpack that a little more?
Yeah
Tyler Schwab (29:32)
was a school teacher at an all-girls school in Austin, Texas. And he's a total dirtbag. And now he's in jail, thank goodness. I think the hardest thing that happens ⁓ when we start doing these cases is just when it's a family member, that's when it gets really, really hard emotionally for some of the kids. Like there's a girl in Guatemala, for example, who... ⁓
whose mother put a hit on her head because she told about what happened with her stepdad. And we were encouraging her like, hey, you gotta report your mom. Like she wants your, she entered in this message that we received. It was like, if I don't have this girl's head on my desk, then there will be hell to pay. And this girl was like, I can't do it. Like she's my mom. I can't, I can't do it. I can't, can't, I can't report my mom. Or sometimes they do report their parents and when their parents are actually held accountable,
They get the wrath of the rest of the family, the wrath. Like there's a girl in our foundation in Columbia, there's actually two girls that went through the same thing where one reported her mom ⁓ and just she got bullied like you wouldn't believe by her uncle, her grandpa, her sister, everybody. It's like you just need to shut up and take it. our mom was trying to make money. I don't know why you're so mad about this. You liked it because you were an addict or whatever.
And she went through a lot where it's like I'm getting like I feel good that my mom is in jail, but the same time I have I have these 50 people that are members of my family calling me all these rotten names and blaming me for what happened. And even like one of the littlest girls that we've ever gotten our foundation who is 10 years old when when her trafficker was arrested, this trafficker was her uncle and the guy's real name, his legal name was Frankenstein. We should have known that he was an animal.
beforehand. But he was abusing this little girl and he was uploading it to the dark web. And like we had to, we found out about it because of a tip from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children where they had ID'd the girl's logo in one of the videos and they were able to locate like which school she went to. When he was finally arrested, her grandma was brutal to her, just brutal, like physically beat her, telling her that she seduced her son. Her son was 37 years old and her grandchild was
Like in no world is a 10 year old seducing a 37 year old man. no world. But because it was family, she felt guilty. She felt guilty with what people were saying about her, to her, and because she reported a family member. That's always just the roughest when it comes to our survivor's emotional well-being is, first off, it takes just an enormous amount of courage to say that you're a victim and say it's a member of your family is doing the harm.
And then once the legal consequences happen to be able to hold tight to your truth, despite the feelings, the contradictory feelings that you might feel and the comments that will come from other members of family about these survivors.
Sarah Jordan-Ross (32:39)
be so hard to take sitting on the the sidelines watching that not actually being able to to intervene to help because
doing so could actually potentially make the situation worse. How do you walk that fine line? And what changes do you think we need to see to how justice happens? When we're seeing victims being victimized all over again after they've come forward.
Tyler Schwab (33:11)
man, that's a great question. think I deal with it, I box. That's how I deal with it, is I make up fake scenarios in my head of what could have happened if situations were different and I box my way out of it. Because yeah, there's some situations where like we had to, there was a time last year where we reported an American guy for sexually abusing these girls and the arrest warrant just took a long time. It took six months to get.
And so he traveled down to the Dominican Republic during Christmas and was texting his victims on Christmas Eve while they're trying to just enjoy Christmas Eve with their families. He's in the city and he's like, hey, you're coming over to my house, I'll give you money, I'll do those different things, calling them, being really annoying and being really, really just an American dirt bag, an old guy, like maybe mid 50s or something. And he's texting these 14 year old girls on Christmas Eve, wanting them to come over to his house.
Like it sucks because like we were telling our police partners of like, look, get this guy. Like we've made the reports. Like what are you waiting for? Like he's in the city now. You could arrest him now. He's annoying his victims. He's threatening his victims. Don't come to his house that he'll do something against them. Like, can you do something? And it's just, it's just, it got stalled. And you know, he got arrested eventually, but I wanted to get arrested on Christmas Eve so that the girls could just enjoy Christmas Eve like normal kids. And it just didn't happen.
So that's frustrating that there's so many gaps in the system and not just in the developing world. Like there's gaps in Columbia or there's gaps in India, but there's a lot of gaps in the United States too. Like a lot of the cases that we work, like there's a case of a guy in a neighboring state in Salt Lake City where I live and the guy, was abusing women.
He was downloading child pornography videos, rape videos, including videos of kids doing things to animals. And they gave him 180 days in jail. 180 days. That's not going to defer anybody from committing the crime. No. No. What is that? Four months? Is that how much it is? No. So yeah, go spend a summer in jail for doing all these horrific things.
Sarah Jordan-Ross (35:17)
It's not even six months.
I'm not that.
for five minutes.
Tyler Schwab (35:27)
Yeah, that's not gonna defer anybody. That's not gonna defer anybody from doing that type of crime. so I think just, like the justice system needs added teeth, I think. It needs added teeth to where they make the crime.
The criminals are fearful to commit it because 880 days in jail, that's not going to stop anybody. That's not going to stop. That doesn't stop you from drinking and driving. It doesn't stop. It's not going to stop people from raping kids. I also think like in this may swing a little to the other side of the spectrum is that, ⁓ you know, there's been, there's been situations here in the, in the United States specifically where people have made false reports and men that hurts a lot of like the people that are making real reports. Like it really just is unfortunate when
Especially like some of these high profile cases like celebrities that say they were sexually abused on set or they were doing all these different things and then it comes out to where that actually didn't happen. And it was more of like a chance to defame like a specific person. Like that trickles down to like our culture. Like a lot of our girls don't report because they're fearful of not being believed. And like in the in the culture that we have now of just when someone comes forward you attack their story when someone
And even worse, like when you find out that story actually was fabricated, like that's really hard for girls that have like this story built up inside them that they want to tell, but they're fearful of our current political climate or the fear of the current culture. And so I like, don't know how to solve that problem, honestly, of like how to, how to, cause I want all my girls to be believed because I believe them. But I know of some stories, not of my girls, but of other
Other situations where maybe the story is not our hundred percent the way it actually happened and it hurts The girls that we work with that want to tell their story. So I don't know how to fix that problem. It's a problem that we're facing across the world really and then I think the last thing would just be As far as like There needs to be an investment and I don't know who's gonna make this investment if it's like private donors or government but in the rehabilitation of
of survivors. these people, there's a lot of money, specifically here in the States right now in the current climate, there's a lot of money that's put into going after the people that are abusing kids, but those kids need so much help after they're rescued. Housing, therapy, whatever. And a lot of those kids are either forced to fend for themselves in the foster care system, or have to rely on non-profits that raise their own money.
which is fine, but ⁓ if you can somehow empower these people economically, whatever that is, education, tech training, ⁓ some kind of job training, that's how I think you really break the cycle. ⁓ And then awareness, like people have to know it's happening, because if you don't know it's happening, you really have no way to communicate what's happening to you, or that you see something, you don't say something because you don't know. I just think not enough people still,
know that this is happening in 2025 because it sucks to talk about it's nasty, it's awful, but it's happening. And so when we say silent, we actually side with the abusers. We don't side with the victim.
Sarah Jordan-Ross (38:48)
and we need to use our collective voices to let those victims know that they're not alone. around here, one of the questions I like to end the show with is, what's one conversation you think we need to be having more of right now?
Tyler Schwab (39:08)
Ooh, that's a good one. ⁓
Sarah Jordan-Ross (39:13)
It's my favorite question.
Tyler Schwab (39:15)
⁓ man, that must be Taboo Talk. That's where the name comes from. ⁓ You know, that's yeah. man, that's so good. think. I think personally on a personal level. We need to talk about how ⁓ The Last of Us is the greatest video game and the greatest TV show of all time. And I will stand on that hill. It's brilliant. It's amazing and it's reflective of real life issues and
Sarah Jordan-Ross (39:19)
Yeah, one of those.
Tyler Schwab (39:43)
⁓ And I think it's awesome. In my church, I think that we need to have more conversations on why tattoos and coffee are not bad things. They're fine and they will not do you as much harm as other things will. ⁓ On a global level, well, I think on the human trafficking level, think more the conversation needs to be had of what kind of gets someone to this point of abusing a kid. Because I don't know.
I don't know and no one wants to have that conversation because these people have no compassion and for good reason. They're pedophiles, they're monsters, they abuse kids. On my end, because I've worked with so many of these survivors, I don't care how they got to that point. I just know that they're there and they need to be punished. There needs to be better men and women than me and smarter men women than me that take a look at these sexual predators and are like, how
Did you get to this point? Is it pornography? Is it how you were raised? it, like what is it? And then nip it in the bud. Nip it in the bud, is it Andrew Tate? Like I don't know, I don't know. Whatever it is, like look at it and nip it in the bud because if there's less predators, there's naturally gonna be less victims. And those conversations need to happen with someone who's more patient, smarter.
and has less experience with victims than I do that has the moral courage to ask those questions, because I don't. I honestly don't. And then I think on a global level, I think we need to have like just a more of a conversation on like what it means to be a refugee and an immigrant. I know it's like maybe controversial, like with the current climate across the world where more and more countries are being so closed. But some of the girls that I've worked with that are now that now called
their home, United States or Europe or Australia, like how they got to those places is not a happy story. And they're just looking for a place to live in peace and quiet without their traffickers trying to kill them, without the government trying to steal all their money. And like these conversations, these taboo talks, like when you sit down with someone that's actually lived through something controversial.
I think it just makes us more human. It makes us more compassionate. It makes us dedicate more motivated to make our world a better place. And I just see, especially now, it might be Trump's fault. I don't know, but the world is becoming less compassionate of people that look to move to a different place. And I don't know why that is, because I really do feel like as a human being, should have, it should be like a no brainer. If you want to live in different place, you should just do it.
You should just do it. it's it's you should just do it. I feel like it's a human right. And it's becoming so weird. And I think less and less people are having real conversations with people going through actual things and are more content to just like live in like an echo chamber or hide behind a screen. And I just like I have this amazing friend that lives probably somewhere close to you on that big island you live on where this girl was.
Sarah Jordan-Ross (42:56)
Actually, I
live on the little tiny one down the bottom that gets left off the map.
Tyler Schwab (43:00)
Oh, okay, okay. I
did not know that. That's interesting. But her family, her sister was gang raped by the Taliban and then the Taliban tried to kill her. And it was the country of Australia that gave her refuge. And she loves Australia. She loves the culture. She loves, she teaches me all the slang. A lot of the slang I can't repeat on your podcast, but she teaches it to me. Oh, I have to look at my nose because there's some where it's like.
Sarah Jordan-Ross (43:22)
She probably could.
Tyler Schwab (43:28)
And I was like, that's what they say. That word doesn't mean anything to you guys. And she told me this really funny joke once. She was like, I'll just say the joke and you can edit it out if you want. But she was like, she was like, yeah, like I learned here in Australia that Americans specifically, like you guys are very offended by the word cunt. And I was like, oh yeah, you don't say that in normal conversation. And she was like, yeah, like we aren't offended by the word, that word.
but we are really offended by school shootings. And you guys just don't seem to care much about school shootings. And I was like, ⁓ like that is like, that's, it's a really insightful insight. Cause like we just, when it comes to that word, like we just don't use it very often, but when it comes to school shootings, like those happen, you know, every day and we're just like, ⁓ whatever, like another one. That's one of the things that she's taught me is just, you know, stuff like that. But she's so.
Sarah Jordan-Ross (44:21)
Yeah. It's perspective.
Tyler Schwab (44:24)
It is, yeah, and she, it's a great perspective, think, ⁓ why she enjoys living so much in Australia is it's giving her a different perspective on how she grew up, on how the world works. You know, she has her issues too with Australia, but the thing that she most talks about is how safe she feels there and how nice it is that the Taliban is not there and that she can get food when she wants and that she can go outside of her house when she wants, just enjoys.
living as a free human being. And I was just like, that's cool. And you wouldn't know that unless you knew her story of where she came from and why she wanted to leave where she grew up and where she found this home in Australia. so I think it's awesome. So those are the conversations I think I would have.
Sarah Jordan-Ross (45:09)
Thanks
of big ones. let's see, little recap. We need some really smart person to figure out how these monsters are created and what we can do to stop creating them.
Tyler Schwab (45:12)
Yeah.
Sarah Jordan-Ross (45:24)
and
We need to create those spaces where victims actually do feel safe, where they can move past what they've been through and thrive out of that, not just survive their trauma, but actually heal from it and go on to create great lives that they deserve to have. And we need to look at things from a different perspective.
sometimes because the lens that we look at things through it just might be a little clouded by our experiences or more what we haven't been through and it's so easy to judge someone who's different from us or who looks different to us or has been through a different experience and have those differences make them less rather than seeing where we're the same and
I tend to think of it, most people, no matter where you're from, we have more things that actually could unite us and connect us than there is that divide us. But we spend so much time looking at the divide rather than looking at how we can build those bridges.
Tyler Schwab (46:41)
Yeah, yeah, 100%. I would agree 100 % with that. Especially like that last statement is there's so much that connects us. Like the love of family, the love of beer, the love of just, you know, just looking to have a good time on this planet and be safe and to love the people that love us and to be with our people. And people will find the dumbest difference. Like I had this, there's this person that I used to be friends with and he got really pissed off because he's a Christian. He's very, very Christian, which is great.
And he believes that when you go to, when the bad guys go to hell, they get just annihilated. Like they just become no more. Their souls get annihilated. There's just nothing left of them. And he stopped being a friend with his brother-in-law because his brother-in-law believed that when you go to hell, you stay there for all eternity. You just, you just suffer in hell for all eternity. And they stopped talking. Yes. There's like the eternal conscious torment and the annihilation about what happens when the bad guys go to hell.
Sarah Jordan-Ross (47:31)
constant punishment.
Tyler Schwab (47:40)
and they stopped talking over this. And I was like, bro, that is the dumbest thing I've ever heard in my life. Like who gives a crap? Like what happens to the bad guys once they go to hell? Where they get tortured, where they get obliterated? Why do we care? Whatever the plan is, if there's a plan, it's gonna happen no matter what you think. This really isn't worth losing a friendship over. But as humans, like they just get stuck on these weird little things that...
how we divide or how we believe is different or whatever, what we think the government should do with our taxes. And when I really think that, like you said, like there's so much more that connects us, like the love of your kids, the love of your family, the love of a good glass of beer, a good movie, a good walk in the woods, a nice friendly planet to live on. I think there's just so much more that unites us and divides us. And we just need to focus more on that and have conversations like this with other people.
Sarah Jordan-Ross (48:31)
think that's a perfect note for us to to wrap things up on although I could quite happily keep conversing about what's wrong with the world and what we can do to fix it because I tend to think and that is part of why I started the show if we have more conversations like this we might actually start seeing things shift because so often we're going through stuff but we just don't talk about it
And yeah, we don't have those conversations of, well, I see things this way, you see things that way. Where can we find that common ground? And I think it's that common ground that we'll find that healing on. But I wanna thank you for showing up and for sharing your stories and for showing up for those kids in the way that you do, because it's not something that everyone can do.
because we're not all wired the same way and while that is a beautiful thing.
And I know you don't like being called a hero, so we won't do that, but...
I think some of your actions would be called heroic in that you are rescuing girls who need somebody to rescue them but then you are also helping them to then rescue themselves.
And for the reminder that silence is not neutral. When we see bad stuff happening but we don't say anything, we're siding with the bad guys and we need to stop siding with the bad guys. So to everyone listening, this is one of those episodes that doesn't end when you hit the pause button. Let it move you, let it call you to action.
I'll include links to Tyler's organisation, Libertas International in the show notes where you can learn more, donate, volunteer or just take the next step and it doesn't have to be with Tyler's organisation. Find somewhere locally that you can make a difference. And until next time, take care of yourself, take care of each other and remember your story
matters so share it. Your voice matters so use it. And you're not alone.