Tomorrow is Not Today

Marc Nuss_Video export
===

[00:00:00] Kingsley: Welcome to the tomorrow is not today podcast. You've already started to create the life you want just by being here designed for you as a business professional. So you can be physically, mentally and emotionally healthy, more productive, less stressed, and living a life you truly love. My name is Kingsley and thank you for coming on another journey with one of our uniquely qualified professionals.

[00:00:26] Kingsley: Welcome to the tomorrow is not today podcast in the studio today. Very, very excited to have Mark Nuss. I pronounce it right? You did it perfectly. Thank you very much. Normally I don't say it right, so I'm very excited to actually get it right. So the reason I'm excited about having Mark here is because We've been a supporter, my wife and I, probably for a decade.

[00:00:49] Kingsley: Yeah, yeah. I think we've been supporting, Destiny Rescue, and the work that you do is just absolutely phenomenal. So, having you here in the studio, it really is an honour. [00:01:00] So just tell us a little bit about you, Mark, how you got involved with Destiny Rescue, et cetera.

[00:01:03] Marc: Yes, okay, great. Thanks for having me on.

[00:01:05] Marc: I really want to say from the start, it's been a real privilege to get to know you through this and we actually started getting to know each other quite well and also I've got to get it out of the way. Thanks so much for you and your wife being amazing supporters of Destiny Rescue for such a long time and that's what I love.

[00:01:21] Marc: Part of the journey I love with Destiny Rescue is that we've got such loyal supporters and. You guys are partners with us to help rescue children out of sex trafficking, but to answer your initial a bit by myself, about myself, as you can hear obviously for your listeners and those who are watching that I am a South African.

[00:01:38] Marc: South African accent will be with me for life. I am proudly married to, I've got an Australian wife, Australian kids, four beautiful children, but, the accent is with me for life. I've been living for about 25 years now in, in Australia. So. I've basically lived now a little longer here than what I've lived actually in South Africa.

[00:01:57] Marc: Yeah, that's quite a while. Yeah, yeah, so I am, [00:02:00] I truly see myself now as a local, so. You're an Aussie. Yeah, I'm Aussie, but the, like I said, the accent is with you for life. It will be. But, yeah, and part of your question is how did I get connected with Desti Rescue? My wife and I were actually early donors, and so that's how we got involved.

[00:02:15] Marc: We actually started donating just like you guys. But it was like from the real early days, and then one day I literally got a phone call from the rescue head office and they said, Mark, we would like to actually just come and meet with you. You've no doubt about our journey. You've known us for a while and we just think you'll be.

[00:02:34] Marc: A great fit. Can we come and speak to you? And they sat down with me. They actually met me with my officers. At that stage, I was running my own business. And, they said, Listen, we want to, ask you if you want to actually, join us full time. And in those days, they said, well, you know, we don't pay so well, so it's alright if you run.

[00:02:53] Marc: Your business on the side, which I initially did, but, but I'm so passionate about what we do and you can't help. [00:03:00] But I just, at the, I got to a point where I realized, you know, can't do two things and I love what we do at Desi Rescue. So I just dove all into it. And

[00:03:10] Kingsley: you're saying that you're so passionate about it.

[00:03:13] Kingsley: And I, when you hear the stories. About what you do, and the results that happen from it, you can totally understand why you're so passionate about it, without a doubt.

[00:03:24] Marc: I think I'm one of the luckiest guys out there. You know when you work in something, that you're passionate about, I don't have, I don't have to in the mornings find some motivation to get out of bed or like, Oh, you know, and don't get me wrong, there's certain stuff that you've got to do that can become mundane stuff.

[00:03:41] Marc: But I, yeah, I feel I'm so extremely lucky to firstly live in this amazing country that we live in. And, but then to be. part of such amazing organization. And, it's, yeah, I just really love being part of it. But if you don't mind, I'll just kind of, for those that don't know about what we are, do you mind if I just share?

[00:03:59] Marc: Yeah. Great. [00:04:00] So Destiny Rescue for those, because we've been talking, I'm sure people going, Oh, what do, what do they do? And Destiny's Child. If I could have a dollar for every time somebody goes, you don't even look like it. So this Theatre Rescue is a not for profit that got started over 23 years ago here in Australia.

[00:04:17] Marc: And, , and was started by a gentleman called Tony Kirwan. And the genesis of it is he overheard two guys in, in Thailand, or guys discussed that they got offered two girls, children to basically have sex with. And when he heard it the first time, that just really rocked his world. And he was like, this can't be.

[00:04:38] Marc: And started looking into it and realizing actually what a big problem, trafficking of children into the legal sex industry is. And, you know, we've got like in the 2016 17 report of the labor organization, They guesstimated that about a million children were trafficked into the legal sex industry.

[00:04:58] Marc: It's the [00:05:00] fastest growing Children. Children. It's the fastest growing illegal industry in the world, and the legal sex industry, and it's the second largest behind, behind drugs. And

[00:05:10] Kingsley: So you said that's about 23 years ago. So that's before it became a popular concept, so to speak. Yes. So What was going on?

[00:05:17] Marc: Yes. So when he started, this theory was right at the forefront. And in early days, our guys had to literally learn how to do that. There was no rule book written about it. There was no, like, how to guide. You couldn't look up on YouTube how to do it, you know. It's literally, saw the problem, and very early on, Tony and the crew realized that they have, if the kids could have just put their hands up and said, here, I might rescue me.

[00:05:43] Marc: They would have been all rescued and, you know, but because it's a legal industry, a lot of it is hidden and it's, and like any other criminal organization, they make sure that they, that those children don't have the help, already available. So the, Tony and the crew realized that they've got to go, [00:06:00] only way to find these children is to go where they are.

[00:06:02] Marc: And that's why we then started actually doing what we call COVID rescues, going undercover, our guys go undercover into, as if they are a sex tourist. Because sex tourism is what really grew that, so it just, sex tourism grew as a, as a sub industry. It started early days, but in the 90s it started picking up and then in the 2000s it, and as travel got more cheaper and more easily accessible.

[00:06:27] Marc: Sex tourism as an industry then grew, so people will travel to these different countries, especially Southeast Asia, and for them, part of the main reasons they're going is for sex, for cheap sex, so they go as tourists. And so that's why our guys realized we've got to go undercover, and so that's what we do.

[00:06:45] Marc: Go undercover. into these bars, brothels, you name it, every dingy dockhole, looking for children that have been

[00:06:51] Kingsley: trafficked into those places. So, tell me, when you say you go undercover, what does that mean exactly?

[00:06:57] Marc: Yes, so, our guys [00:07:00] are highly trained. A lot of lessons were learnt in the early days, especially in Torquaytonia, they, you know, they had to learn as they went, But now, our guys are professionally trained, but what we do is, and I'll give an example, if you don't mind sharing from my, from, from one of mine.

[00:07:14] Marc: The first time I had the privilege to go undercover with our permanent team was in Thailand, and was in a, in a area called Patea or Patea or however you want to pronounce it on, you know, it's probably not Patea. No, . So just blame it on the South African way of pronouncing it. I've been there enough times.

[00:07:30] Marc: Do you think I would have gotten it right? But no, I didn't. So, and anyway, so my, and this will give you also just an example. Of how these children find themselves in these positions. So, so like I said, the first time I had the privilege and opportunity to go undercover with, with our permanent guys was in peo was so we were in a well-known, tourist spot where, where there's lots of bars around, don't want to give too much away.

[00:07:55] Marc: But so we literally went in as if we were. Just sex tourists, like the [00:08:00] rest. So we were milling, just like the rest, went into this bar. In this specific bar, they had like a platform in the middle, and the girls would be dancing there and everything, but all these girls, a lot of them would be, wear skimpy outfits, bikini, tops and bottoms, some would even be topless, and then they would have little numbers on their bikini bottoms.

[00:08:19] Marc: So, And this is the thing, you literally, it's nearly like going shopping and they've got all these, and sometimes they'll line them up for you, and you literally go, I want number 43 or number 22. In my case it was number 43, that's why the number jumps out to me. And I'll never forget it, number 43. And it was this young girl, she kind of, she was kind of half hiding behind another girl, and Her number was number 43.

[00:08:44] Marc: I just pointed to them and said I want number 43. And just like picking a product, I brought her, sat her next to me, and at that stage she just thinks I'm another sex tourist, another dirty John that's flown in from somewhere to have sex with him. So, here I've got this girl, and [00:09:00] she's underage, sitting next to me, and the name I'll give, that I'll give her is Sugi.

[00:09:05] Marc: But that's not a real name. We protect our, our children's, identities all the way through. But Sugi, so here's Sugi and, and her story, and this is gonna give you a close example of how they find themselves when trouble is. Sugi was with her 10 year old sister, so now already you can see where her age is.

[00:09:20] Marc: Her age is around the 13 years of age. You know, Sugi, was in school with her 10 year old sister. Life was good. Both parents were working. Had dreams like any normal child. Normal childhood. Unfortunately for her, her father suddenly passes away, dies in an accident. He was the main income earner and very quickly she could see her mother struggling for paying for their school fees, but also roof over their head and so forth.

[00:09:46] Marc: Sugi, as this was getting a bit more worse, Sugi, out of the kindness and goodness of her own heart, wanting to look after her family, just told her mama, how about I just step out of school for a short period. And literally, she just thought for a short period, [00:10:00] and I'll go to the closest big city, I'll find a job.

[00:10:03] Marc: And she was thinking in her mind, you know, waitressing or cleaning dishes in a restaurant. She literally thought. I'll go and work for a restaurant. I'll get some work. It'll help her mother out until her mother gets the opportunity to find new work and kind of get back on her feet and then she was going to go back to school.

[00:10:18] Marc: That was literally her big plan. And her mother was very torn but reluctantly said, you know, we're desperate. All right, if you don't mind. So Suki goes out to the bigger city wanting to look after her family. But unfortunately, What happens to so many of them out there when they do that is wrong people got hold of her and she, as she found herself four months later, she's been forced into the legal sex industry and she's forced to sleep with, dirty johns coming in from all over the world.

[00:10:48] Marc: So here she's sitting next to me, broken girl, given up on life, couldn't see a way out. In our conversations as we were talking later, and this is the thing for me is like, when I close my eyes I [00:11:00] can still see it in vivid colors, is when, when I asked her about, Sugi, if, you know, you've stepped out of school, what is it that you wanted to do, you know, while you were in school, you know, and just to see somebody when they tell you a dream that they have, like a passion, something that they were passionate about.

[00:11:17] Marc: But to see their whole body language and the way they speak about it, that they've totally given up on that. That that dream has been shot to smithereens. In their mind, they can't see themselves ever, ever walking into that again. And she just kind of looking down on the floor, never looked up, just mumbled under her breath, I'm a school teacher.

[00:11:37] Marc: So here you've got a beautiful little life. That wanted to help her family and her dreams of wanting to become an educator of the next generation. Yet she's forced to do something that she never ever dreamt she would have to do. No child, no human being should be put through that. Yet, this is the problem we're [00:12:00] facing in the world at the moment.

[00:12:01] Marc: It's one of the fastest growing industries in the world. You've got people forced to do things that they never, ever, ever dreamt that we'd have to do. And sometimes we can put a cultural thing around it and say, Oh, it's a culture. No, it is not. I've spoken to enough girls and children and we do rescue boys as well, but the majority are girls because of the marketplace out there, you know, even boys that we've rescued, they've all got the same dreams and aspirations as their own children.

[00:12:27] Marc: I've got four children, and to be sitting next to, at that stage, a girl that was the same age as one of my girls. It's very sobering, because she is somebody's child. She's somebody's daughter. A parent somewhere is wondering what happened to her child. Where's their daughter? I know if something would happen to any of my kids, I will move heaven and earth.

[00:12:50] Marc: to find them and try and protect them. And so for me, I count it as a privilege for us to be in that position so that we can rescue somebody's child, [00:13:00] a child that deserves to have their own destiny, not the one they were railroaded into. And so that's how, how that kind of looks also when, you know, to answer your question, when we go undercover, that's how our guys go, they'll go undercover.

[00:13:13] Marc: A lot of times they'll also go fact finding because we've got another component that's called a raid. So that's when we actually get Federal Police Agencies and Police Agencies to come and raid a specific facility. Especially when they're actively trafficking children in it. So, that shuts the place down, people get taken to custody and hopefully breaks up the whole network and you rescue everybody that's been trafficked in there.

[00:13:39] Marc: Because we, when we do raids, and if we come across them, we'll also rescue adults. So our focus is children, but it's just like you've got the lifesaver out there in the ocean. You don't find the lifesaver if somebody's drowning, swimming up to the person drowning, going, Hey, how old are you? Oh, 22. Sorry, too old, and turns back.

[00:13:57] Marc: No, if it's an adult that's been trafficked as [00:14:00] well, which you do definitely have, we, if they come across our path, we will rescue them.

[00:14:05] Kingsley: I, I, I want to make a point in here at the moment because obviously this podcast is not our normal podcast. Yeah. But it's a message that I want to get out there. And some of the things that you said, I think are really, really important that we often look in our own cells of what's going on in Australia and how things work.

[00:14:23] Kingsley: And we do give up on our dreams as, as adults, as professionals, our kids give up on our dreams. When we look around what we have here, there is no reason for us. to give up on what we want, our dreams and that sort of thing, as well, to be able to do stuff. Yep. We look over there, these kids, they don't have a choice, like you said, and they went out and all good intentions, obviously started with a brilliant family, everything was going great, Yep.

[00:14:53] Kingsley: and all of a sudden it changed, and she, I don't know how she got into that, I don't know if you know how she actually got into it, [00:15:00] but, the thing is that, it wasn't a choice, and a lot of people I think think, In that industry, it's a choice.

[00:15:07] Marc: No, no.

[00:15:08] Kingsley: But it's not a choice.

[00:15:09] Marc: No, no. And it's through economic circumstances a lot of times.

[00:15:13] Marc: It's through, yes, you get cases where you've got just bad people around them. Whether it's an uncle or even, unfortunately, sometimes a parent that will actually sell the child. Like, we rescued a girl. that her mother passed away, her aunt took over her care and unbeknownst to her, her aunt, because she was still quite young, was feeding her a hormone tablet so certain things could grow and had pre sold her already to a trafficker.

[00:15:40] Marc: You know, so you're gonna find horrible situations like that. But most of them is purely financial reasons that they are looking for work to try and help family members out. that they find themselves in those positions. And like you said, you know, what happened between where she went looking for work is that unfortunately cross paths with the wrong people, opportunists, the traffickers, know [00:16:00] which areas to go, where to look out.

[00:16:01] Marc: For example, I'll just show you this story. And I do apologize. What we talk about

[00:16:06] Kingsley: It's very full on, but I, I want people to know what's going on, not be because it's very easy for us to be in. Western Australian culture and go life's so difficult I'm dealing with so much and yeah We all deal with a lot of stuff from time to time and some people are a lot worse than others Yeah, but for the majority very few of us I think have to deal with this sort of thing on a day to day basis

[00:16:32] Marc: totally and so I'll give you another example of how they the step in between.

[00:16:37] Marc: But for example, I know Tony shared one of his personal stories is a girl that's named Chloe, not real name once again. And Chloe was part of a family of seven siblings. They were unfortunately from a real rural area, subsistence farmers, and they had a couple of bad years. Things weren't going well, so all the kids went looking for work.

[00:16:56] Marc: So, Chloe, being at that stage 14, [00:17:00] just asked in the town, her local friend, where can I find work, because there was no real work in their local town. And this friend just said, hey, how about you, you know, go to the bigger city. and just find work there, you know. And so, so Chloe literally hitched a lift on the, on the back of a truck or in Australian vernacular, a ute.

[00:17:20] Marc: On the back of a ute, the Ute took her in into the city and dropped her off at a bus stop. So when I say bus stop, it's literally a drop off point. So took Tooks and buses, everything will come through there, but it's not like an official bus stop, like what we would note here, but it's just a drop off point.

[00:17:35] Marc: And for Chloe, and this is a similar thing that happened to, to, to a Suki. is Chloe got dropped off, so no idea, now she's in a big city, she got dropped off at the point and there was like a, it was nearly like a half moon area and surrounding it were these bars at the drop off point. And unfortunately for Chloe, she gets dropped off, she's got a little bag, looking a bit like lost, where to now?[00:18:00]

[00:18:00] Marc: And a bar manager sees her, walks out of her bar, comes to her and said, Oh, you're looking a little bit lost. And she said, yeah, I've actually come looking for work. The bar manager says, well, oh, I've got work for you. Do you want to work in a bar? And I'm like, oh, how lucky am I? And she literally, just right there, opportunistic, just right there.

[00:18:20] Marc: She says, yes. And the bar lady said, well, you know, the job's easy. All you've got to do is just talk to customers, you know. And she said, you know what, I've got some place for you to stay. It's right in the bar. So this, Chloe naively goes, you know, she's a, she comes from a rural family, worked really hard, went to school, you know, I've got to put it this, virgin girl, had no idea about the big bad world out there.

[00:18:44] Marc: She, the lady takes her in, said, oh, this is the room, you're going to stay in the back of the bar, it's like this hallway, in the back of the bar. And she said, here's your room, she opens the room, and she says, this is, there's a bed, and there's just this little skimpy outfit lying there, and she says, this is what you could have wear [00:19:00] when you, and now she's, Chloe's confused, not sure what's going on here, and she looked at the outfit, and that's basically a little see through skimpy outfit.

[00:19:06] Marc: And the bar lady closed the door, and unfortunately, now I've got to apologize, this is, but I'm going to show you the reality, alright? Is, next minute, the door opens, and three guys walk in, and they start breaking her in, if I can, I'll put it that way and leave it at that. Chloe tries to fight them back, but unfortunately it's three of them.

[00:19:29] Marc: But here is for me Shows the things that, that some of our children have to deal with. And for me, I just want to put this right from the beginning. Our biggest heroes are our children. Because if you can go through what they've got to go through, and to see them on the other side, I, they are my heroes.

[00:19:49] Marc: And then for each one of them, that's for us. Our children are, they're the heroes of the story. And, so Chloe's fighting back, but, so here, at the most vulnerable point, the thing that [00:20:00] she never ever dreamt would happen in her life. They are videoing that at the same time, so that they can sell it to pornographic websites around the world.

[00:20:08] Marc: So in the back of her mind, while this is happening to her, she keeps on thinking, Who is going to see this? And that's what they did, and then after that she was forced to sleep with customers. Until we found her, and we were able to rescue her out of that hellhole. And in the rescue, I'll just go to the next one, so when we rescued her that night, we rescued her driving to our rescue centers, which we have rescue centers and also, we've also got other organizations we work with because as we were expanding, we realized we've got to get other partners from part of the care and we research, make sure they're right and safe and we do agreement with them.

[00:20:44] Marc: But so, but within this case, it was one of our own rescue centers we were taking. And so we were driving her and our guys ahead of time. Sent a message for the rescue center saying we've got a new girl coming in. So what we did there is that when our guys came through the gate with [00:21:00] Chloe, all the girls that were in the rescue center's care was there waiting for her.

[00:21:06] Marc: And when she saw the girls she realized That the rescue was real because and and she just had this over exuberant expression so elated and afterwards when we spoke to her later on said your expressions were just so she said yeah because I actually so I didn't trust anybody anymore and when you guys said you'll rescue me.

[00:21:27] Marc: I was praying that there was 1 percent chance that it would be true, but I still didn't know it was, till I saw the other children at the entrance greeting me in. And what's the amazing thing is, and this happens to so many, is that night we were able to take her to her bed and said, this is your bed, and for the first time in a long time she had a safe bed that wasn't a place for work or abuse.

[00:21:51] Marc: But a place that she could just put her head down and sleep, and she literally slept for two days. And that's a lot of them, that's what happens. Because for the [00:22:00] first time, they've got a safe place to put their head down. Now just think of that. Sleeping in a bed, just as a normality, normal thing of life.

[00:22:10] Kingsley: You don't think of it in that way.

[00:22:12] Marc: But for them, to find yourself where that is a place of abuse and a place of work. To finally be back in a place that is supposed to be a place of safety. Like, Like my girls, sometimes they get frustrated with me, you know, especially my, 15 year old.

[00:22:27] Marc: She just turned 15. And I'll, you know, even though they sleep, I'll still sneak in and just have a look, you know. You're a dad. Yeah, I'm a dad. I'm a dad. That's what you do. And sometimes I'll hear out of the voice of the doctors, what, what dad? I said, I'm just checking. But it's, but for me, that's how it should be.

[00:22:47] Kingsley: Yes.

[00:22:48] Marc: Yeah, exactly. That should be a place. Of safety, of rest, of peace. Yep,

[00:22:53] Kingsley: 100%. So, obviously going through that, like, there would be very few [00:23:00] people listening to this. You could even relate remotely to that. Some will. Yeah. Some will. But there would be very few. So, what happens, because the mind, the mental aspect of that, what's going on in them, because obviously there's got to be a massive, for them to actually, to begin to trust, to begin to Be able to think well, to be able to think that I actually can have a proper future in front of me, that I can live a real life.

[00:23:31] Kingsley: And some of those dreams, maybe they could be possible again.

[00:23:35] Marc: Yeah.

[00:23:35] Kingsley: How do you work with them to get that happening?

[00:23:38] Marc: Well, so initially when they arrive at our, at the rescue centres, They, they get assessed medically, so they get medical help, and some of them do need medical help, you know, there's, there's some that actually need hospital care, there's some that actually have got venereal diseases that they need help with, we've actually got, children that have got, HIV.[00:24:00]

[00:24:00] Marc: So you've got to put the, they've got to be on the right type of medications, et cetera. And so they first get the immediate, those immediate medical needs met. And then, then, we also start putting them on, start with, getting, trauma counsel. And, and that looks at different ways in our centers.

[00:24:16] Marc: You know, there will be even like art therapy and a whole bunch of different ways that they, that they help the children with it. So, and, and then what we do , is, we then assess their long term, which is the long term path. So we've got pathways of freedom, which can include education, vocational training, so that we can get them to that point again where they can actually go after their own destiny, hence destiny rescue, other than the areas that were railroaded.

[00:24:41] Marc: And what is mentioned there is very important, is reconnecting them with those dreams. So, we've obviously had different models to work through, and, how things are operating for us now is, is sometimes you've got to not just only help them with education, but you've got to also help them with vocational training at the same time.

[00:24:57] Marc: And I'll give you an example. One of my, [00:25:00] trips. We, like I mentioned before, we're in twelve, twelve different, nations internationally. We're based out of Australia, but we're, operate in twelve different nations, so it's nations like Thailand, Cambodia, the Philippines, and then we've also, and many more, but we've also got a lot of nations that, if you go on our website, will say Undisclosed Nations.

[00:25:17] Marc: For political sensitive reasons, we can't mention them. That's why I'm not rattling off too many names, just in case I mention one of the Undisclosed Nations. But, so, but anyway, so in this case I went to, in the northern part of Thailand this time. And we had a rescue center there, and I went and visited it because, , so we, at that stage, we had just rescued 11, 14, and 15 year old boys.

[00:25:40] Marc: There were girls as well, but we had these boys, because what happened with them is, again, you know, these traffickers are opportunists, so, or they'll actually actively be in certain places where they know they can find children. So what happened in this case, you had, This father, lovely father, he had, uh, uh, know, my, I think it [00:26:00] was about nine children.

[00:26:01] Marc: Uh, his wife, unfortunately, passed away, but he was, he was working double, double jobs. So he was working the day job and at night to make sure he could look after his children, his children could go to school. So you can't fault the father at all on his, uh, on working as a single father to look after his, his children.

[00:26:21] Marc: Did a brilliant job. So this, this, 14 year old boy. He, his child would go after school and go and play computer games with the rest of the young children, his boys his age. And it was at this, computer, it was at this store where, when you think of it, it's not these nice Gaming consoles, as we think, it's literally a whole bunch of computers that are on tables, wires everywhere, and, you know, they pay to sit and play there for a certain period of time.

[00:26:51] Marc: And, so he would frequent that on a regular basis, sometimes three, four times a week after school. And him and his best mate. [00:27:00] And so, but they started befriending a guy, an adult playing there, because you'll have adults playing there, was playing there as well. So this guy befriended them and, you know, got to know them.

[00:27:11] Marc: And unfortunately for the two boys, at one stage he said, you know this game you like playing, I've got a PS4 back at, at my house. It's way better graphics, you know, quicker response time, do you guys want to come and check it out? And they thought, because they, together, they were right, and they got to know the guy, and he looked like a nice guy.

[00:27:29] Marc: Unfortunately, they said yes, he took them, he picked them up, took them to his house, and when he got them inside there, he basically raped both of them, and he then kept them. He was in control of 11, 14, 15 year old boys that he kept captive. And what he would do, is he would, through social media, And, he's closed in drinks, basically, pimp out these, these boys.

[00:27:53] Marc: And, these boys were that fearful of him, that he would literally be able to drop off a boy at the [00:28:00] curb of a building. They'll walk through the lobby, go up the lift, go to whatever room it is, be abused, come all the way down, back through the lobby. Crossed the road to the waiting car and never ever asked for help.

[00:28:13] Marc: That's how traumatized they were. And they were forced to sleep with three to four customers per day, each one of them. So, how we found out about it was, this boy is, the father obviously when he's Son didn't come home, was missing, started looking for him and then found out his best mate was also missing.

[00:28:31] Marc: Went to the police, you know, the police are overrun with, and just, they basically told him. The local police just said, listen, this is just another boy that ran away. And, and he's like, that's not my son, I know him, and he got the word out and the word through the community filtered through and one of our guys found out about this dad desperately looking for his son.

[00:28:49] Marc: So we went and checked it out, got the information, and we were able to actually find the son through some of our, more online connections and things that we started already developing by [00:29:00] then, but we ended up finding out about this ring. And we infiltrated and caused it to be raided by the, by the, police and we're, we caused all 11 to be rescued.

[00:29:13] Marc: And so they were now under our care in this rescue center. And we actually placed them here at a partner rescue center that we, we, that works closely with us. So here I'm talking to this 14 year old boy, right? So you tell, so hear his story. And although he's got a great father, because of the care he had to go through, He was still staying at our rescue center because, you know, he's dealing with trauma and a whole bunch of stuff.

[00:29:38] Marc: But part of this whole thing, like you were saying, connecting them back with the dream that they had to give them. Because once you can connect them back to the fact that they know that they, that they can, they're allowed to dream again. And that they, they are worthy to go after the dreams that they had.

[00:29:56] Marc: It gives them this internal fortitude to actually break through the things [00:30:00] that that that would really hold you back, especially with the trauma that they've gone through. And so, you know, to, and so in his case, what we realized is one of the things that he really liked doing, or that he wanted to do, is he wanted to become a, motorbike mechanic, that was a desire he had before all of this happened.

[00:30:18] Marc: And so we knew that was part of his key and part of, so we thought, all right, we'll organize vocational training. So we went and found a motorbike mechanic and told him, will you take this young man on three days after school as an apprentice? And train them up to become a mechanic. We'll, we'll actually pay you money so that, and that model really works well when we get business like that because suddenly they've got extra help, they can train up somebody that will do it the way they like it to be done.

[00:30:45] Marc: But they've got now a greater capacity to take on more business and this model really works well for us. So here we've got this wonderful 14 year old boy, he actually had just turned 15 while in our care. He's working, but to see that smile come back on his [00:31:00] face and when he started talking about Him with the work he's doing with the motorbikes.

[00:31:05] Marc: You could see that life filtering through his whole body. The way he was talking, that beautiful smile subtly popping up in his face. That is part of why I believe we've got such a good rate of success, right? Also is that we connecting them back with that dream. We connecting them back with the ability that, you know, yes, something really bad happened to you.

[00:31:27] Marc: But you've got still so much more in front of you, and you can dream, and you can go after those dreams and those desires that you've got.

[00:31:35] Kingsley: And it doesn't matter where we are, we are built, we're created that way, with dreams and desires and passions and things like that. And the fact that you guys can go in there Pull them out of the most horrific scenarios and circumstances, bring them back, and then get them on a track where they're like, I can dream, and they, you're putting a joy, there's a difference between [00:32:00] happiness and joy, and there's a joy obviously that's starting to come back when they feel the reality, and obviously that's going to take time for that to happen, and the, the belief in this, actually, really, am I actually doing this now, would be absolutely phenomenal, and just, what it must do for you.

[00:32:18] Kingsley: It's just huge. Like inside of you, the fulfillment you must get out of that.

[00:32:24] Marc: Well, this is the thing for us. We've been doing it for 23 years. This year in October will be 24 years that we've been doing this. And so you, if you've got this whole track record of where these children end up and even adults, where they go with their lives.

[00:32:39] Marc: But for us, we know when we meet that child the first time when they're rescued. We're meeting them at the worst trajectory point in their life, but what makes it worthwhile for us and it is that joy is we know where they'll end up. Yeah. We know that with what's, what we've got provide, that we are providing and we're going to provide for them in the [00:33:00] pathways of freedom.

[00:33:01] Marc: And even the ones where it's safe for them to go home and we reconnect them there with their families. We know the trajectory from that point is upwards. And we know that they'll get the tools and the help that they need to be able to go where they can choose their own direction. They can set their sails right and go after their own dreams.

[00:33:19] Marc: And so yes, it is, that's what makes it all worthwhile. So, you know, and even talking to some of the permanent guys. That's the thing that really fills them up, is they, they know where they end up. So, yes, you've, if somebody's drowning, you've got to rescue them right now. But then you've got to give them the tools that they don't go straight back into the ocean and drown again.

[00:33:38] Marc: You've got to teach them how to swim. You've got to give them the tools that they can actually don't be in, don't be in that position again. Watch out for rips. Yes, please swim between the flags. You know, all those type of things. So. As you start giving those tools and just to see them then run with it and and go after the license.

[00:33:54] Marc: That's why the children for us are our biggest heroes, because the fact that you know what they've gone through, but [00:34:00] yet see them later on life. They've got their own families, they've got their own careers and their Children that they starting to get. I've got no clue what their parents went through. So, yes.

[00:34:10] Marc: And you

[00:34:10] Kingsley: get to see some of them down the track? Oh,

[00:34:12] Marc: yeah, you do, you do. And we try and stay in contact with them as much as we can. But some get married, names change, phone numbers change, etc. But there are ones, and you know, we're fortunate, we've had some. That went and got training and, and ended up coming back and actually working for us as well.

[00:34:31] Marc: So, yeah, yeah. So that is like full circle. So yeah, and, and for me, I just love it that we've got, children and adults that are now in so many various different walks of life. And that's, that's what I love was, you know, for me is to see them find their thing. What's their thing? And they go after it.

[00:34:50] Marc: In one of my trips to Cambodia, I was in, in, Saint Tirpitz. And I had this chat with this, , with this lovely girl and what happened there is, is [00:35:00] part of, we try and connect them with everything and, and in that specific center, we actually had in house beautician school, if I can call it that way.

[00:35:08] Marc: So that's if, for the girls that wanted to do it, because we had to give them, a lot of them were safe to go back to their village or where they come from, but you've got to give them a vocation that they can actually help. with income for the family. So, we've had cases, sorry, I'm bumping the mic.

[00:35:22] Marc: We've got, we had cases where we rescued two, I love telling the story because it just, for me, it just is, we had two sisters that we were able to rescue that were together. A lot of times they'll split them up, but the two sisters that were trafficked together that we rescued. And they went through, through that in house training, beautician training.

[00:35:42] Marc: And so it's basically hairdressing, makeup, manicures, pedicures. When I was there, they painted my nails because they were practicing. So they're like, no, no, no. You know, like, no, no, no. They're like, all right. All right. You'd look

[00:35:55] Kingsley: great with painted nails. Oh,

[00:35:56] Marc: listen. And it was this dark purple, right? That they [00:36:00] picked.

[00:36:00] Marc: And then they hit the stuff too. clean. I said, all right, now can we take it off? They go, no. And that night we had to go, I had to go with the Puna guys undercover. And so I'm walking. So needless to say, I was getting different type of attention than what I was expecting. So, but anyway, finally got to clean the next morning when I went and got some nail polish removal.

[00:36:22] Marc: But anyway, so these two sisters got, so they got trained up. So they went back to their village. And, and they, and they opened up their own. beautician salon. Now we don't immediately think western style marble floors and just these beautiful scented candles and music playing. This is, we're talking rural village in Cambodia.

[00:36:43] Marc: And so they were in the middle of the town center. They opened their up, still teenagers, opened up their own, beautician, salon, beauty salon, where they did hairdressing, makeup, manicures, pedicures, and all of that type of thing. But it was literally a wooden shack. And then the front of it, if [00:37:00] it was open, the top would be on top of the roof with a rock on top.

[00:37:04] Kingsley: Yep.

[00:37:04] Marc: If the, if it was closed, the top would just be down in front, but they were making enough money, not only to look after themselves, but the extended family.

[00:37:13] Kingsley: Yeah. Wow.

[00:37:14] Marc: So, you know, that whole, and that's the principle we believe in is that principle of feed a man a fish, you feed them for one day. but teach them how to fish they can look after themselves and their family for the rest of their lives.

[00:37:24] Marc: So it's giving those skills and that's where the vocational training comes from.

[00:37:28] Kingsley: And I love that the fact that it like the rescuing in itself that is just over the top. Yeah. Amazing. But you do, the way you take them through that whole process where you work with getting their mind in the right place, you give them a skill, you help them.

[00:37:45] Kingsley: What do you want to do? Where do you want to go? And you get them training, whether it's through your organizations you've got set up or other people you know, or whatever, to be able to put all that together in the one package and completely change. [00:38:00] Well, it's not just one person, but that's going to adjust the family and then they're going to get married and they're going to have kids.

[00:38:05] Kingsley: It's a whole ongoing effect. That's going to affect literally generations and make a massive difference.

[00:38:11] Marc: Oh, absolutely. And, uh, I was starting there when I was there at Ariskinson. I was talking about a girl and then I went and told you the story about the two. Well, in this case, this, the one girl that I was actually going to talk about, she, there was nothing that she was really attracted to.

[00:38:26] Marc: So, not to the beautician school or anything. We actually even had amazing, they're actually not for profit, but, this amazing, patisserie. And I actually went to this patisserie. I've actually got this video going to this patisserie. And they made these amazing cupcakes. But they would take the girls that wanted to do that from out under our care.

[00:38:43] Marc: They would train them up to become patisserie chefs. And I mean, these things, you know, we've got a bit of video. You can see I definitely enjoy my food. And I remember when I showed my wife when I got home and she sees me there. I've got this cupcake. She said. Trust you to find a cupcake store and I said, listen, it was for work.

[00:38:59] Marc: She [00:39:00] went, yeah, yeah, whatever. But these cupcakes were brilliant that they made. And I think they actually came like third or second in some international baking competition, really good stuff. I mean, seriously good stuff. And so they would put our girls on a two year training. Well, they would be, look after them.

[00:39:17] Marc: They would get trained up to do this, but we had this girl now. So she had all these different options, but she was. Not really taking to anything until our, they'll have their own quiet time and their own time, you know, with just their own space and until one of our, social workers saw that whenever she was in her quiet time, she would just take a piece of paper and she would just sketch this beautiful drawing.

[00:39:38] Marc: And we realized that's her key. So. We went in looking for a art school and there wasn't a lot of real good art schools out there, but we found one that was specializing more in the Japanese style of art. So we enrolled her. It was like fish to water. You could see that [00:40:00] life returning. She, she excelled.

[00:40:02] Marc: She did really well, worked really hard. So after she graduated out of it, we said, Oh, they're so awesome. Now we've got to find work for you because, you know, it's great to have that, but we've got to find work. But just as it would happen at that, around that same time, an international company came and set up a digital animation arm in Cambodia.

[00:40:23] Marc: And, and they were asking for interns, only a handful there were. So they're asking for applications. So we helped her with her application, filled it out, send it off, fingers crossed and just like, please let this happen. She got picked as one of the, interns. And, .-.

[00:40:38] Marc: And that's when they would teach them in house then how to turn the physical art into a digital form and all of that type of thing.

[00:40:45] Marc: And I'm happy to say at the end of her internship period she got given a full time job as a digital animator.

[00:40:51] Kingsley: How good is that? That is so That's mind blowing into what, where they go, what happens, that's phenomenal. [00:41:00] And

[00:41:00] Marc: they end up everywhere in nearly any type of career. Yeah, yeah, you can tell that.

[00:41:05] Marc: Whatever they are, whatever

[00:41:06] Kingsley: they like. And it's good that the, you know, the social workers and people can see what they want, what they're good at, what they enjoy and pick it and run with that. Yep. We are coming to where we're going to have to close, but I want to, if you can briefly tell us about, you've mentioned before about when COVID hit, you started doing online sort of.

[00:41:25] Kingsley: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Can you just tell us a little bit about how that works? Because I think that's phenomenal and the difference in so many ways. Yes,

[00:41:33] Marc: I've just touched lightly on What we do, we do so much more. We, we, we've got like in Nepal preventative work where we stopped children being trafficked across the border.

[00:41:42] Marc: So we've actually helped support border stations all through Nepal. So yeah, so we do so much more. But one of the areas that for us that we've grown into further has been during COVID. So, what happened during COVID is you've got to realize for these traffickers, that child Or [00:42:00] that individual is purely just a product for them.

[00:42:03] Marc: Like I told you when I, you know, when I had the privilege to go undercover with our permanent team, they line them up and they've got numbers and you literally, they've taken humanity out of it. You literally, you don't even have to ask them for the name or anything. You just pick the number. For me, like Sugi, number 43.

[00:42:17] Marc: So we've actually got an undercover video just to, to also showcase that for these traffickers, that child is literally just a product. It's not, so in the, I hope you don't mind, I'll just quickly also share this because it just showcases how. How these guys think, is that, like, we've got an undercover video where our guy's sitting next to a 14 year old girl.

[00:42:36] Marc: And he's talking to the trafficker and they're negotiating for the 14 year old girl sitting right next to him to have her for the whole night to do whatever our guy wants to do with her, right? She's not part of that conversation. She's not part of that, that, that negotiation. So our guy's negotiating, no, no, this price, because you've got to play the role and sex tourists will, you know, will try and negotiate the price.

[00:42:59] Marc: We negotiate the [00:43:00] price, finally agree on price, shake hands. Got her for the whole night to do whatever AR guy wants to do with her and the ER say, Hey, you wanna buy a beer to celebrate the deal? You know, get the night going. I said, yeah, sure. So he goes, comes back and he's got a beer. But it's like one of the, you know, Australian vernacular tall, one of the taller, bigger, bigger, beers.

[00:43:18] Marc: I don't think he gets them anymore. But yeah, like, and our guy takes it and goes, cheers. And I go, oh yeah. Cheers for the deal. Takes this week. You know, just bought this child for the night to do whatever we want to do. That price of that beer was more than that girl for the night. Kidding. So what value do you think they put on it?

[00:43:45] Marc: They'll put more value on the beer they just sold than that human being. And they do that type of thing for night after night after night. She's just a commodity. So that explains then when COVID hit, [00:44:00] they've got the product, the commodity. But the clients aren't flying in anymore, so they started going online, still got the products, found a new way of exploiting that child, and so started creating online content.

[00:44:16] Marc: And we realized we've got to go online, because we didn't shut shop. We stayed open, a lot of, you know, NGAs that don't do what we do, but a lot of places were shutting down, letting go of staff, and we were like, no. And we offered actually, some of our permanent unrecovered guys who come from other countries to say, Hey, you want to go back home?

[00:44:34] Marc: And all of them individually said the same answer, said, No. These children don't get opportunity to go home, why should we? So we stayed open. But we're so grateful we did because we saw the shift to online. And we started first seeing them use closed social media groups to. You know, still service expats and different clientele that was still living in the countries, but then started creating video content to go overseas.

[00:44:58] Marc: , and everybody would know [00:45:00] by now, probably if they don't know during COVID, the tsunami wave of online abuse material came, just huge tsunami wave. People could realize they could be sitting in Sydney and live stream into a thing and then start getting a child to be abused and different things. So we realized we needed to jump in.

[00:45:17] Marc: So typically the STA Rescue stuff, we just jumped in and go, all right, we've got to learn as we go. You know, somebody told me, he said, this really reminds me of guys that jump out of a plane and build a parachute as they're falling to the ground. So, sometimes, you know, you've just got circumstances, you doubt the hands you've got, and you've just got to jump in and be part of the game.

[00:45:34] Marc: So, we dumped it, but long story short, because this can take ages. At the same time, there was this, federal police officer in New Zealand that was dealing with online abuse material, and he had this hunger inside of him going, yeah, we're catching these guys who are buying this material, and we do help children, but a lot of these videos have got a child in it, and where's that child?

[00:45:55] Marc: Somewhere in the world that child is. And that, long story short, he went [00:46:00] like, I've got to help be part of the solution, finding, go after them, and find the child on the video. He failed to go to Thailand because he saw a lot of stuff come out from there. He just so awesome. By chance he meets up with a head of our undercover work.

[00:46:14] Marc: Start connecting the dots and then having an open conversation after they got to know each other really well. He's now, he heads up now our online division. And we give him, I won't say his name, but he heads up our online division. So he very quickly realized the stuff that we'll need. And so he was a new of this amazing software, but I don't want to tell too much of what it does.

[00:46:34] Marc: Got us, connected us with the right people to get this amazing software. And I think we're growing very quickly to be probably one of the forefront in the online area from a not for profit point of view. Is that we've got, we now go after the child that's in the video and go look for that child.

[00:46:50] Marc: And we find that child, and once we find that child, we cause that child to be rescued. And one of the cases, if you don't mind, just, just was, for us it was one of our bigger cases, [00:47:00] with the knock on effect it had, is, our guys, so early on, our guy was head of our division, had a video of this three year old girl being abused, that was being sold online.

[00:47:11] Marc: And so he just kept on looking for her. So while we were finding other children online, she was very elusive. We couldn't find her in the sense of, there was no real footprint out there to work out where she is. But with our software we could work out roughly which area or which country she was and a few, and even narrow it further down.

[00:47:30] Marc: But we kept on looking for her and we never gave up on her for two years. Never gave up on her. After she turned five, we finally found her. We were able to rescue, yes, we were able to rescue her. But in risking her, we actually caused The guy who was behind not only her abuse, but everybody, a lot of other children's abuse.

[00:47:52] Marc: He was on the most wanted list in his category, in, in countries in Europe, in the U. S. and different places [00:48:00] around the world. They were looking, Federal Police Agency were looking years for him. In the right we were able to cause him to be captured. By the police and the English federal police actually were there on the day because they wanted to interview him for and he threw him so many names came out there because we were able to take his devices and basically we convinced him to open up his one device and we were able to keep very clear records, pull out information of all his subscribers, all his clients and with our software we were also able to find people that are buying these children and we're rescues.

[00:48:35] Marc: Material. Wow. So we were able to, you know, I'll say roughly in the past year and a half, probably shorter, we were able to, for example, cause close to 400 Australians alone to be handed over their details with evidence that they'd been buying child abuse material to the Australian federal police.

[00:48:55] Marc: Wow. That's awesome. So through our, so we'll use our international context through the [00:49:00] Thai police and from what avenue, so it goes to the right avenues, but we are able to cause that to, to happen from that point of view. So we're, our online division is really growing, but with the sole focus, we are looking for the child.

[00:49:13] Marc: Yeah. But finding the perpetrators is, if you want to put it that way, side effect of going looking for that child in that video. And that's the area that we're really growing more and more. And technology is changing. So we need new technology. So at the moment, we're also trying to budget and save up for some amazing facial recognition software that we're after and different things that will help us because we literally get given out thousands of files.

[00:49:39] Marc: We've helped train up the Thailand with their online division, helped train up some of their officers. We've signed an agreement also with the Filipino government and different ones. We don't get paid by those government, but we, by helping them, they help us. Yeah. Yeah. So it's a very close, awesome relationship.

[00:49:54] Marc: A lot of times people think these governments don't wanna do these governments want is they seek and tired of their own [00:50:00] citizens getting, used and abused. So they also want to see the end of this. It's just the criminal elements that are keeping this type of thing going.

[00:50:08] Kingsley: Mate, that is, you've really a lot of deep.

[00:50:14] Kingsley: enlightening, tragic, but great stories at the same time. It's you've, we've covered, I think every emotion that possibly can be in so many different angles, which is just, and that's, that's what I wanted. I wanted people to hear. what's going on out there, and the reality of what's happening and there are people that are helping.

[00:50:34] Kingsley: So people will be listening and going, how do I help? How do I become part of this? What, what can people do to actually support what you're doing?

[00:50:44] Marc: Well, we help governments, but we don't get funded by government. So literally we're, Tier one not-for-profit. So we get externally audited. We've gotta have our financials on a public site.

[00:50:56] Marc: So a lot of, most of them, the tier one not-for-profits will [00:51:00] put it on the specific government website. We went a step further and we asked 'em if it's okay. So they say, yeah, that's great. So we actually put, our financials are on our website, right? So anybody can anytime go and see our externally audited financials.

[00:51:12] Marc: They write there on our website. We're very open of what we, how much we bring in and where it goes to. We're very fortunate that about 76%, 74, 76 percent of our finances, I don't know what the latest ones would be. We're still working on that, but, goes to where it's, where it's supposed to go. So, we're quite proud of that as well.

[00:51:29] Marc: But for us, our donors are moms and dads and smaller to medium sized businesses. We've got very loyal supporters like you and your wife. We've got donors that literally, but mostly moms and dads. And then we've got some institutions and churches in different places that will support us as well.

[00:51:46] Marc: But yeah, we're a Tijuana for Profit. So how people can help support us. is by becoming donors.

[00:51:54] Kingsley: It's obviously a very well oiled machine. And like you said, sometimes you jump and build a parachute. But [00:52:00] yeah, anyone in business is going to know that's what you're doing half the time.

[00:52:03] Marc: Yeah, so, so here's the thing also, maybe, and I can't even remember if I mentioned in the beginning, but last year, just our figures last year.

[00:52:10] Marc: Last year we averaged, I just double checked it now because we got the latest figures through. It's actually over 11 rescues per day, seven days a week. So I want people to think every single day for 365 days, we were rescuing over 11 individuals.

[00:52:28] Kingsley: That's huge. That's 77 a week plus.

[00:52:31] Marc: Yes. So it ended up being 4, 188 or something like that.

[00:52:35] Marc: That's

[00:52:36] Kingsley: a

[00:52:36] Marc: lot. That's huge. And just a quick thing from. In the beginning days, we were so busy rescuing and building and grading this and working out to do it. We realized by, midway that we hadn't been keeping clear record that we could say, hand on heart, this is exactly how many we rescued.

[00:52:52] Marc: So we thought in trying to create this convoluted story, let's just start 2011 at zero. So 2011, we started at zero. [00:53:00] Counted the numbers, so we're sitting on 18, 500 and something plus rescues. It's probably 600 plus now. That's a lot of people. Yes. And, we've, every year we've gotten better and better, so this year will be another record year, we believe, for us of rescues.

[00:53:18] Marc: That's fantastic. Now, I'll just end it with this. Through partnerships, donations, people doing fundraisings for us, people connecting us with other people, that's how we get our finances in. I'm using you guys as example. So you sitting here, you're doing amazing work, reaching out to men and women in the business sector.

[00:53:37] Marc: You do your work, but by being a donor, you are a partner with us. Every time I guys go undercover and they find a child, an individual, and then rescuing them, you are there with us because you are the one that put us in that position. I couldn't have been next to Sugi. Our guys can't be there [00:54:00] rescuing over.

[00:54:01] Marc: Over 11 a day, if it wasn't for people like you, our donors. So I want to say from our children, our, our individuals that we've rescued huge, huge massive thank you, because There's no way that we could do it if it wasn't for people like you. It's

[00:54:18] Kingsley: amazing when you just get a bunch of people do a little bit.

[00:54:21] Kingsley: Yep. The massive difference that can happen. Oh, absolutely. Which is fantastic.

[00:54:26] Marc: And like, I know you guys, you know, that's why we've got the rescue partner program where people donate monthly because that helps us with cashflow or like I said, we've got people that You know, you've come to some of our, you know, fundraising events that we've had.

[00:54:37] Marc: Stuff like that. People say, you know what, I'm going to do a fundraising event, you know. So, but it's people like you guys, like the rest of our donors out there that enable us to do what we do.

[00:54:47] Kingsley: Yeah, no, that, I, thank you for coming in and telling us the stories. What's going on? And I think in Australia, we don't grasp what's happening.

[00:54:57] Kingsley: We hear about it.

[00:54:58] Marc: Yeah.

[00:54:59] Kingsley: We mentally [00:55:00] know it.

[00:55:00] Marc: Yeah.

[00:55:00] Kingsley: But we don't really grasp what's going on. So having you come in here, tell the stories of people's lives. Like you said, you Sugi, about the same age as one of your daughters at the time.

[00:55:15] Marc: Yeah.

[00:55:16] Kingsley: That's got to hit home.

[00:55:17] Marc: Oh, totally.

[00:55:18] Kingsley: So yeah, thank you, and I just encourage anyone who's watching, listening, jump on board, jump onto the website, see if there's something you want to get involved with.

[00:55:27] Kingsley: We can't all get involved with everything, but this is a great organization with phenomenal people that are doing the right thing. And I would really encourage you to see what you can do to become part of it. Mark, thank you so very much and for all, everything you guys are doing.

[00:55:42] Marc: Thank you, mate. Really appreciate that you brought

[00:55:44] Kingsley: me on.

[00:55:44] Kingsley: Thank you. Remember, we all get to create the life we want.