Tarrant County Sheriff Bill Waybourn called on churches and nonprofits to “get off the bench” and partner with local law enforcement to end human trafficking in North Texas.
Churches are the best vehicle for getting vulnerable children out of trafficking situations and into the safety of a loving home, Waybourn said Thursday. His remarks came during a charitable luncheon hosted by Unbound Now, a Fort Worth-based nonprofit focused on identifying and supporting trafficking survivors.
“There’s no walk of life that is not touched by this, and what we need is a good, stand-up — quite frankly — ministry to help those people get out of that,” Waybourn told reporters after the event.
Unbound Now partners with the Tarrant County Sheriff’s Office to offer resources to rescued trafficking survivors. The nonprofit also operates The Underground, a 24/7 drop-in center for vulnerable youth ages 10-22 to rest, eat and shower.
Human trafficking occurs when a person is exploited through the use of force, fraud or coercion to perform labor or commercial sex, according to the U.S. Department of Labor. Although anyone can be trafficked, law enforcement agencies note specific factors that may increase someone’s risk: economic hardship, substance use, mental health issues, and placement in foster care.
From the stage Thursday, Waybourn told audience members a human trafficker arrested by Arlington police is serving a life sentence in the Tarrant County jail.
As Arlington prepares to host the FIFA World Cup games this summer, Police Chief Al Jones and Sgt. Tarik Muslimovic were honored Thursday for the Arlington Police Department’s work to curb trafficking through their Human Exploitation and Trafficking Unit.
FIFA partnered with international trafficking organization A21 to offer specialized training programs on human trafficking and plans to offer a toolkit for local governments to spread awareness, according to an early version of FIFA’s human rights action plan.
Waybourn declined to share details with reporters on his office’s strategy regarding trafficking during the World Cup.
“While I won’t disclose plans, we know that that will be an issue, and we plan to be ready for it,” he said.
From 2019 to 2024, Unbound Now served more than 1,300 confirmed and potential trafficking victims, according to a Tarrant County Public Health report from February 2025. JPS Health Network, the county’s public hospital district, identified 1,046 patients — 86% of whom were female — as possible trafficking victims from 2020 to 2024, the report states.
Although he didn’t share specific numbers, Waybourn said he doesn’t think human trafficking is increasing in Tarrant County, but the attention to the problem might be.
He said that when he took office in 2017 he quickly identified trafficking as a “big issue” that no one had paid attention to. The Tarrant County Human Trafficking Task Force was formed that year with local, state and federal law enforcement and nongovernmental organizations.
Waybourn named pornography as a leading cause for the “appetite” for human trafficking. He urged churches to lead ministries against pornography, targeting such interests within their own congregations.
Increased pornography demand may contribute to trafficking, Unbound Now’s website states. But the nonprofit notes that many factors including poverty and political instability perpetuate the issue, without labeling a singular leading cause.
Law enforcement can’t tackle trafficking alone, Waybourn said. Churches often are better equipped with more resources to support victims, he added.
“What I’ve asked the churches to do is stand up that ministry and have a flagpole where people can quietly go to it because that’s the only way you’re going to do it,” Waybourn said.
In Central Texas, a Christian-led refuge center called the Refuge for Domestic Minor Sex Trafficking — more commonly known as Refuge Ranch — opened in 2018 to serve trafficking survivors with residential treatment and equine therapy. The ranch wasn’t led by a church but featured a chapel as its campus centerpiece and farmhouse-style cottages for survivors to live in.
Many survivors experienced inadequate care and more traumatic experiences, including alleged sexual misconduct, at the Refuge Ranch in its first five years, according to a Texas Observer investigation published in 2024.
Asked by reporters for examples of successful church-led ministries aimed at trafficking, Waybourn highlighted HighRidge Church in southwest Fort Worth but didn’t provide specifics.
Last year, Waybourn attended the groundbreaking of Mercy Culture Church’s shelter for human trafficking survivors, a project approved for development after years of anticipation despite opposition from hundreds of north Fort Worth residents skeptical of the security and suitability of the location. The shelter is planned to provide 100 beds for trafficking survivors, plus an on-site chapel.
“It’s the church that is the solution, not the government” to human trafficking, Waybourn said at the time.
Cecilia Lenzen is a government accountability reporter for the Fort Worth Report. Contact her at cecilia.lenzen@fortworthreport.org.
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