Tennessee humanitarian group risks all to dismantle human trafficking rings

HICKMAN COUNTY, Tenn. (WZTV) — A Middle Tennessee humanitarian group that specializes in disaster relief is making a bold public statement.

Aerial Recovery is going after human traffickers and breaking up sex slavery rings. By going public, they are risking their lives.

These veterans, unarmed former elite soldiers, nurses, doctors, and regular volunteers just rescued 12 girls in Colombia and helped send three slavers to jail for 23 years.

They have done it before, but in secret. This is a new scary statement.

A remote farm in Hickman County, Tennessee is today’s training grounds. Being a volunteer for Aerial Recovery is about way more than just signing up. To be in this group you must train, you must be fit, you must be brave. You learn how to safely drink from water pits, you learn how to take injured people out of the jungle.

It is a big task with a big reward.

“It enables us to be able to be a global first responder and then have a pool of individuals that are trained and competent to work beside us and make us more impactful when we go,” said Seth Griffith, Deputy Chief of Special Operations.

Aerial Recovery responds as a neighbor – like its work in Mayfield, Kentucky – but has also rescued 5,000 war refugees in the Ukraine, worked the dangerous floods in Pakistan, and most recently rescued 12 girls being used as sex slaves in a Colombian brothel.

Aaron Asay, Chief Medical Officer of Aerial Recovery, says it's dangerous but important work – work that is no longer a secret.

“The fastest growing criminal industry in the world, the second largest criminal industry in the worl,” said Asay. “The enslavement of human beings that is specifically today, 2023, targeting our most vulnerable population. So how can we not stand up and say. You know what, this has to end, we’re no longer gonna allow our children to be sold for the fetishes of other human beings.”

Asay is a former soldier, as many are in the sex slave operations. But they no longer carry weapons. That is a game-changer.

“We do train to be able to protect ourselves without weapons, you’d be amazed at what we can do with a number two pencil, but at the same time our biggest weapon is that we are very prayerful in this organization. In this particular case, we prayed before we went into this brothel and we prayed for protection. And that is the best protection any of us could ever have.”

Asay says not once has he not felt the protective hand of God over him while rescuing other people.

If you would like to join Aerial Recovery or just help fund them saving children from sex trafficking, click here.

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