Couple Makes Fighting Child Prostitution A Lifelong Goal
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (CBS4) - Children as young as 11 years old are being removed from Asian brothels through undercover work by a Colorado-based organization. It's called The Exodus Road.
The organization does its work collecting evidence in brothel-filled streets including in Thailand and India.
Matt Parker of Colorado Springs and others pose as customers. They seek out children employed as prostitutes.
CBS4's Rick Sallinger spoke with Parker upon return from a recent trip asking, "When you go into a brothel, what do you do? What do you say?"
"You go in and pose as a 'john' seeing who's for sale. The mamasans will come up and try to sell you a girl. You have to get to know them a little bit and say 'I want something a little different,'" Parker said.
He added that he has to walk a very fine line.
"You don't want to push them really hard and sell you something they wouldn't otherwise have sold."
He uses an array of electronic devices to gather information. A hidden camera recorded one disturbing transaction in Thailand.
In that instance, a Thai man working undercover for The Exodus Road went into a brothel and spoke with the woman in charge of the girls.
"Yesterday you said you had two types," he said, "Virgins and almost virgins."
The woman replied "Yesterday a customer reserved one of these and I told you you could have her after him."
They work with local law enforcement authorities such as in that case in Thailand. Police moved in to make arrests and free the children who often are then sent to government homes.
Half a world away at The Exodus Road headquarters in El Paso County each success story is marked on a stone.
LINK: theexodusroad.com
Matt Parker's wife Laura showed CBS4 their collection of names.
"This girl, 11 years old, was rescued in 2015 ... in India," she said pointing to one.
They have collected 747 of these stones. Matt Parker and his wife Laura started The Exodus Road after living in Thailand running a home for impoverished girls.
Matt Parker recalled, "One of the rumors was a girl, a pretty girl was going to be shipped to Bangkok and sold into the sex industry."
He figured as a foreigner he could pose as a "john" to give information to the authorities. Since then word of their operation has gained notoriety in part through an unusual celebrity connection.
Last year former Chicago White Sox player Adam LaRoche joined Parker to pose as a customer in the brothels.
"At first we are like, are people going to recognize him, he has that glorious beard of his. But it was fine in southeast Asia -- no one recognized him," Parker said.
LaRoche has since quit baseball, but still supports The Exodus Road's efforts against child prostitution.
Parker emphasizes they are not just going after the low level operators. They use a device made by a company called Cellebrite that mines data from cellphones that are seized from the brothel managers. They are able to gather information that can lead to those higher up in the prostitution rings. The devices are used after law enforcement authorities obtain a search warrant.
The Exodus Road also operates a volunteer force watching out for evidence of child prostitution in Colorado.
Parker says the work of his nonprofit organization is rewarding for him as well as the children they rescue.
"They can look forward to a different life, a life full of hope a life outside a brothel," he said.
CBS4's Rick Sallinger is a Peabody award winning reporter who has been with the station more than two decades doing hard news and investigative reporting. Follow him on Twitter @ricksallinger.
