1y ago

US anti-child trafficking activist resigns after sexual harassment allegations

www.theguardian.com US anti-child trafficking activist resigns after sexual harassment allegations

Tim Ballard, whose work was dramatized in Sound of Freedom, has left the Operation Underground Railroad organization

The anti-child slavery activist Tim Ballard, whose work was dramatized in the movie Sound of Freedom, resigned from the Operation Underground Railroad (Our) organization he founded amid allegations he sexually harassed colleagues, it was reported on Monday.

Ballard, a former adviser to the Trump administration on child sexual trafficking, who is reported to be exploring a run for a US Senate seat in Utah, resigned abruptly from the group in June for then-unknown reasons.

But the online media outlet Vice reported on Monday that the ultra-conservative figure, an alleged QAnon conspiracy theorist, resigned after Our launched a sexual misconduct investigation against him involving at least seven women.

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According to the report, Ballard invited female staff and volunteers to accompany him on overseas missions playing the role of his wife, then would coerce them into sharing his bed or showering together by telling them it was necessary to fool traffickers.
Vice said it had spoken with many of the women. One, it said, received photographs of Ballard in only his underwear, showing off a number of fake tattoos; another was asked “how far she was willing to go” to save enslaved children.
- “They’re watching our every move, so we need to have sex and you need to act like you’re reeeeaaallly into it, okay? Like, lots of screaming about how big I am and how I’m amazing in bed, okay?”
  
  "Now stick this old corn cob up my ass and pinch my nipples."
- What the actual fuck
  What a huge piece of shit

Note that this was the guy that the movie Sound of Freedom was about, the movie with the Qanon-adjacent message that people on the right claimed was being suppressed and was one of the most successful films ever (as they bought out entire empty theaters).