Dallas native joins undercover fight against child sex trafficking Tasha Tsiaperas
Imagine a pimp peddling a 12-year-old girl and bragging she’s a virgin with “zero kilometers” on her. Now multiply that child’s ordeal by 2 million.
Anti-trafficking organizations estimate there are that many child slaves in the world. It’s a staggering statistic, one that a national nonprofit is going undercover to combat.
Dallas native Matt Osborne, a 1990 graduate of St. Mark’s School of Texas, quit his job in the U.S. Department of State and moved back to North Texas to work with Operation Underground Railroad. The group helps authorities lead undercover sting operations in other countries to arrest traffickers and rescue child slaves. The group has also worked in Washington and California.
Osborne has been on undercover operations in Mexico, Colombia and the Dominican Republic. Sometimes he and his colleagues save dozens of children in a sting, but sometimes it’s just one or two.
“It’s like the corny parable about the starfish,” Osborne said. “You made a difference to that one.”
Now Osborne is turning his attention to partnering with state authorities and local anti-trafficking groups to end sex slavery in Texas, which ranks second behind California. Last year, the Texas Department of Public Safety rescued 54 exploited children, many of whom had been sexually assaulted and trafficked.
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