On a hot summer night in Houston, Natly Denise Diaz walked into the throbbing bass and loud music of a dark cantina on Star Lane.
Eerily welcomed inside by the house’s madam, the burgeoning activist moved cautiously into the small bar — an obvious stranger among the usual patronage.
As she lingered, Natly noticed men of all ages — drinking conspicuously overpriced beer and enjoying the establishment’s more pertinent attractions, “pony girls” as they’re often referred to in the industry.
Every paying customer was another John in the making — either paired up with or waiting for their very own pony girl to use and abuse as they wished.
Across the wide dance floor, Natly could see through the smoky ambiance to the very back of the room, where a well-lit bench kept at least a dozen pony girls on display.
Natly kept scanning the bench — now looking at what she struggled to believe was a child — just 11 or 12 years old, as far as she could tell.
Natly fixed her focus on the unfolding tragedy. Questioning her senses, she asked a companion if her eyes could be lying.
Unfortunately, they were not.
Natly’s fears were confirmed, and a horrible realization went straight into her gut. A child was there to be trafficked and sold.
The little girl, an apparent Latina migrant, wore a short skirt with a bare midriff. She was scantily dressed as a fully-fledged pony girl. A small handbag completed the abhorrent ensemble, meant to inspire perverted lust and quick cash from the degenerate, child-raping clientele.
Natly desperately considered any manner or method she could to remove the terrified child from the colorfully-lit hell of the Houston cantina.
A horrendous yet undeniable reality put a hard check on all hope, however. There was no easy way to affect a fast rescue — escape for the child was impossible. Natly’s heart ached with despair.
By 2015, Natly Denise was relatively familiar with the many harsh realities of human trafficking. After four years of assistance to various victim advocacy groups, she was aware of the atrocities behind the veil.
But nothing prepared her for what she saw at the cantina on that hot summer night — or how it still tortures her thoughts.
In the big cartel business of trafficking children through the many dark cantinas of Houston, even taking a picture puts all lives at risk.
Spiritual Discovery on the Darkest of Paths
2012 was the start of inflection for Natly Denise Diaz. What started as an out-of-the-norm gig became a lifetime calling in activism for the then-aspiring makeup artist.
“I was really lost and broken,” Diaz explains in an evening phone call, “And God brought me to a church where my friend, who was already involved in a ministry with human trafficking, introduced me to all of it.”
Her friend asked for assistance with “special effects” makeup. Diaz said she would try — thinking it was something along the lines of more traditional costume-style makeup.
But Diaz soon learned she would be making actresses look like trafficking victims.
“I was really taken aback by it,” Diaz explains, “At the time, I was like, ‘What the heck is trafficking? What is that?’ So, that’s when I first learned what it was.”
After her initial lesson, Diaz was even hungrier for spiritual feeding and purpose.
She joined a ministry at Lakewood Church, and with a small group of friends, she began educating others about the disturbing and oft-ignored horrors of the human trafficking industry.
In furtherance of her work, Diaz assisted with efforts at Freedom Place: a safe house for victims and survivors. As the only female from her church ministry to gain clearance to visit the safe house, Natly was shocked by what she saw — children, some as young as 9 — desperate to escape the heavy chains of the modern slave trade.
Natly Denise Diaz understood she would have to do more. The epiphany was ongoing, and the spirit was leading her forward.
She had a friend who was involved with Elijah Rising, a unique outreach organization that, at the time was managed by Catherine French. Diaz remains inspired by her example and leadership.
“She was just a very hearty lady — just so on fire to help victims and go out there and scout the streets to see what she could do,” Diaz explains, “So I learned to do all kinds of different things like making calls to BackPage listings to offer resources for rescue or extraction — if that’s what the girl wanted — the simple opportunity to decide to leave the sex-worker lifestyle.”
While still finding her flame and perfecting her stride, another friend encouraged Natly to get involved in the bilingual cantina outreach program — otherwise known as Star Lane Van Tours.
It was while working late into a hot Houston evening when the ministry led Natly Denise to the loud music and throbbing bass in a dark cantina on Star Lane — that den of iniquity where a little girl’s silenced distress irreversibly caught Diaz’s attention.
“I tried to take a picture of her,” Diaz remembers somberly, “But it started to become obvious when I pulled out my phone. I called Houston Police Department immediately to report what I’d seen.”
Unfortunately for all, mostly the child trafficking victims, Diaz’s call for help went unanswered that evening.
She was contacted a day or two later by HPD detectives — they attempted to gather more details and expressed a sincere desire to locate the little girl.
Not long afterward, Diaz received another call.
“The detective called me a day later and let me know that HPD went out to that very location, and the girl was not there,” explains Diaz with melancholy understanding, “The whereabouts of this girl remains a mystery that has haunted my thoughts ever since.”
Realization of Purpose in the Ongoing Fight
In the years that have followed, Diaz has remained steadfast in her purpose to free children from the bonds of the human trafficking industry.
Since 2020, she’s engaged in multiple expeditions to the U.S. Southern Border — observing the numerous breach points where cartel mules and seemingly benevolent NGOs bring sedated children into America — ready to be trafficked in an industry of despair.
While continuing her vital work in cooperation with the United States Border Patrol and Patriots for America Militia, Diaz has confronted the darkness head-on — fighting common misconceptions from a largely ignorant American public — working tirelessly to educate whoever is willing to listen.
As Diaz knows intimately, major headlines in media don’t ever tell the full story. The problem is widespread — extending far beyond the rumors of ritualistic abuse from the elites and deep into the local level — right in everyone’s backyard.
While law enforcement works hard to address the endemic nature of the problem, budgets for investigative work remain small, and the trafficking industry is decentralized — organized with a dynamic structure predating but similar to the hierarchy of El Chapo’s Sinaloa Cartel.
Cutting the head off the snake is impossible. Fixing the problem with supply only begins with decreasing demand.
“There will never be enough supply for the demand out there, which is a scary thing,” Diaz explains, “And although it’s not a provable statistic, it does explain why there is so much trafficking going on and why culture is trying to groom our generation to normalize this type of lifestyle on the left and the right.”
Diaz says while the left side of the paradigm may be more obvious to conservatives (through symbols, transgender grooming, and “sex-positive” radical feminist ideology), the right has its own problem with grooming.
“It’s crazy because of how the normalization of an over-sexualized culture is intertwined with intersectionality,” explains Diaz, “But also you see things like right-leaning podcasters now saying things that men are naturally promiscuous, and it’s normal.”
Diaz describes how both sides of the political spectrum come inadvertently to work together in the most disappointing way — breeding an unhealthy culture for men and women alike — pushing the envelope of acceptable societal norms.
“I run The Daily Traffic, reporting on the sexual exploitation headlines,” Diaz explains, “Every single day, someone new, in a new city, is charged with not just a few pieces of child sexual exploitation material or sexually abusive material, but hundreds of thousands of pieces.”
“It’s an insane byproduct symptom of our cultural decline,” adds Diaz.
As for a solution, Diaz remains hopeful that awareness is the key. Denial won’t help anything, and the problem can only be fixed by those who possess the courage to acknowledge its disturbing existence.
Although repairing the broken minds of the many souls who’ve been so egregiously victimized by human trafficking is exceedingly difficult, Diaz believes the necessary societal breakthrough is already underway.
“Ten years ago, when I began in the ministry, I myself was a young 20-something that had absolutely no idea,” the now seasoned human rights activist explains, “When I found out, I was astonished, and I was provoked to move. And I believe there will be other people like that once they find out what this is and what it looks like.”
Diaz says the silver lining for a very dark topic is the increasing public hunger for the truth. She retains hope that society will come together to “fight this dark epidemic of human trafficking and child sexual exploitation.”
“People are going to want to get involved. And fortunately, everybody has something to offer,” Diaz reminds all who would heed a divine calling, “Whether it is from domestic skills to technical skills, every skill is valuable in this fight.”
It might be easy to dismiss any optimism in such a dark time in our world.
But when thinking back to the beginning of Natly Denise Diaz’s calling, perceiving the darkness is likely the only reasonable step forward for our society at large.
After all, it wasn’t until after her own heart-breaking experience — seeing a little girl caught in the slave trade and made to be a prostitute — that an aspiring makeup artist, who was lost and looking for purpose, received her ultimate epiphany.
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This story originally appeared on TheGateWayPundit
