Fields of Grace
Polson woman seeks to help child sex trafficking victims through safe house, therapy
Caleb M. Soptelean
Jill Perkins is raising money to purchase a ranch where teenage girls who are sex tafficking victims can participate in equine therapy.
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POLSON – After stumbling onto a podcast about child sex trafficking in March 2015, Jill Perkins decided to do something about it.
Perkins talked to her family and some friends and was encouraged to proceed. Out of that was born the idea for Fields of Grace Ranch, a non-profit organization that she intends to build with Polson resident Kyle Yankey. They want to raise the $1 million or so to purchase an 80-acre property where they can house teenage girls who are sex trafficking victims.
Equine therapy would be used to help treat the girls at what Perkins calls a safe house.
“As I listened to a woman share her story of working with survivors, something inside of me just broke,” Perkins said. “I started doing research and realized that 300,000 children are trafficked each year in the U.S.”
The average age of girls who are trafficked is 12-14. For boys, it is 9-11, she said.
There are only 200 long-term beds for sex trafficking victims who are rescued in the U.S., she said. Perkins envisions a place where girls can stay on a long-term basis of three months to a year or longer.
So far the 501(c)3 non-profit has raised about $6,000, she said, noting they are looking for a home with land. Eventually she would like to have a beef cattle operation to help make the ranch self-sufficient.
Perkins said that sex trafficking victims have post traumatic stress disorder at the same level of those involved in military combat. That’s where the equine therapy would come in.
“It is an amazing form of therapy,” she said, adding that it has helped military veterans with PTSD and autistic children, among others. She plans to employ two women who are being trained in equine therapy.
The need is real. “If no stable support system is in place, girls often go back to their trafficker up to seven times,” she said. “We want to provide a family atmosphere. Most will come from broken homes.”
She cited statistics that show most child sex trafficking victims lack basic life skills. It is the goal of Fields of Grace Ranch to provide these skills and to affirm the girls it serves as people with value.
Child sex trafficking happens everywhere, including Lake County, she said.
She cited an example of a Polson man who was arrested along with 20 other defendants in 2012 as part of a child porn ring. According to the U.S. Department of Justice website, Paul Wencewicz, 50, of Polson, was sentenced to 220 months in prison and lifetime supervised release and ordered to pay $29,859 in restitution for his part in the ring.
Operation Kingdom Conqueror began in 2011 when FBI agents and officers from the Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force received a tip that ultimately led to the discovery of Kingdom of Future Dreams, an online bulletin board operated by Wencewicz, that members used to advertise and trade sexually explicit images of young girls. Between November 2009 and March 2012, Wencewicz and other members of the bulletin board sexually exploited hundreds of girls, both domestically and internationally, by trading images and videos of them, according to justice.gov.
“If child porn is going on, you have child sex trafficking,” Perkins said.
She encourages those interested in finding out more about sex trafficking to watch the “I Am Jane Doe” movie on Netflix. It is a documentary about backpage.com.
For more information, go online at fieldsofgraceranch.org. Donations can also be sent to: Fields of Grace Ranch, P.O. Box 1222, Polson, MT 59860.
