By Ashlyn Beck | Staff Writer
Through a fundraising event called Wildtorch, local nonprofit Jesus Said Love is fighting to free women from a history of sexual exploitation in Waco that dates back to 1889.
That year, Waco became the second city in the United States with a legal red-light district, with women confined to a plot of land on the banks of the Brazos called “the reservation.” The legal red-light district remained for almost 30 years.
Now, Emily and Brett Mills, co-founders of Jesus Said Love, said they seek to rewrite the city’s history and fight against sexual exploitation in Waco.
“This is a real fire, and it’s been burning in me nearly 20 years as I have walked with women overcoming sexual exploitation, trauma and trafficking,” Emily Mills said. “When I learned of Waco’s own sordid history of benefiting off women from the sex trade and yet giving them nothing in return, I knew the stories needed resurrecting.”
Granger, Ind., sophomore Raylee Foster said Jesus Said Love is hosting Wildtorch on Oct. 19 at the Waco Hippodrome to help with that mission. Foster works as the social media manager for Lovely Village — a branch of Jesus Said Love that provides affordable housing, job training, counseling and more for sexually exploited women and their kids. All profits from Wildtorch will go toward Lovely Village.
“The intention of Wildtorch is to invite the Waco community to carry fire with us, which is just our way of saying help people to better get involved with what human trafficking looks like in our community and how we can fight against it,” Foster said.
Foster said the nonprofit will also be hosting a student raffle, and the winner will receive 10 free tickets to the event.
“We’re really trying to focus on getting Baylor students involved … [and] understanding what human trafficking looks like in Waco,” Foster said.
According to Emily and Brett Mills, they decided to start raising money for the cause after visiting strip clubs in Waco and giving gifts to the women they met there.
“We just thought, ‘Oh, these women are here by choice,’” Emily Mills said. “What’s a choice? Every choice has a context. What have we told women with generational poverty? What have we asked them to choose? If their bodies still are commodities, if they still can sell that, why wouldn’t [they]?”
Both Emily and Brett Mills said they are committed to getting women out of the sex industry.
“The reality is that every woman growing up in America that’s ever driven down the interstate and seen a billboard or watched a TV show knows that she has been sexualized,” Emily Mills said.
Jesus Said Love also features a program called Stop Demand School. Brett Mills said this is a class that targets men who are consumers in the sex industry, educating them on the magnitude of the repercussions of their actions. Rather than shaming these men, he said it’s important to have open and honest conversations with them.
“When I talk to guys, [I say], ‘You have to look at her — someone’s daughter, someone’s future wife, … someone’s mom,’” Brett Mills said. “Put the human piece on her. You can’t reduce her to what her body parts are.”
According to Emily Mills, love is the greatest tool they can use to eradicate the sex industry and break the cycle of poverty among women participating in it.
“[Love] has the power to change the trajectory of … the DNA that is wired and epigenetically transposed through future generations,” Emily Mills said. “To come back home to yourself, to realize you have been loved from the beginning — there’s nothing that can take that away. It’s revolutionary.”
