A local man’s efforts to stop child trafficking worldwide
By Cynthia Yip
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HONOLULU, Hawaii (KITV) — A local man is sharing his experience with the real life events that inspired The Sound of Freedom on social media. The movie is based on the story behind Tim Ballard, a federal agent who conducted a sting operation to protect children from human traffickers.
While the movie mixes fact and fiction, Kahea Kamau’u, an anti-human trafficking volunteer, took to social media to share the truth.
“The question was, ‘is she a true character? Was this person real?’ and the answer is yes,” Kamau’u said on TikTok. “She was Miss Cartegena for Colombia … she used her influence to attract young kids and then she would traffic them.”
Kamau’u helped protect Tim Ballard in 2018 when he went to Cartegena to testify against the traffickers portrayed in the Sound of Freedom.
“We had to keep him safe,” Kamau’u said. “Bomb threats, shooting threats to basically kill the witness. So a team of us flew in and we covered him to the courthouse, we had armed guards. He was wearing a bullet proof vest.”
Kamau’u says he volunteers and donates to non profits that help end human trafficking and that he is moved to help these groups because of his two sons. He said like girls, boys are trafficked too.
He hopes the Sound of Freedom ignites awareness about child traffickers.
“If at minimum, its talked about this talk about the abuse of young girls difficult subject to talk about which is why these traffickers have gotten away with it,” Kamau’u said. “But now that we are aware just sharing and talking about it and being more aware of the situation, then it will ignite the fire that will eventually end the trafficking issues.”
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