Reality Show on Sex Industry and Jesus Christ to Premiere
A former sex trafficked teen, prostitute, call girl and stripper is starring in a new reality show about helping prostitutes on the street and bringing them to Jesus Christ.
The show, "Hookers: Saved on the Strip," follows Hookers for Jesus founder Annie Lobert on her quest to rescue women willing to escape the "game." She takes them to Destiny House, a safe haven where she tries to help them spiritually and prepare them for the real world.
The three-part series, which premieres Wednesday night, contains some graphic scenes and mentions God very few times. But Lobert insists that the show is about living out the Gospel.
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"The parts that you will see is what [Investigation Discovery] chose to portray. There are a lot of things that you will not see that you're just going to have to trust, if you are a Christian watching, that we are doing this for God," Lobert told The Christian Post. "It is a show about redemption and restoration in Jesus Christ."
Through the show, Lobert is hoping to help correct people's misunderstandings of prostitution and destroy the stereotype associated with the practice.
"I think that the word 'prostitute' has been thrown under the rug and thought of as a dirty-trashy-you-deserve-it-you-wanted-it type of word," she said. "But in all reality it is the same thing as sex trafficking because 90 percent of the women that sell themselves are being pimped. And guess what? Prostitution equals sex trafficking."
The 43-year-old who worked 16 years as a prostitute and high-class call girl said it is important to remember that prostitution and sex trafficking go hand in hand because when women sell their bodies they are being sex trafficked by their pimps and equally by their customers.
Lobert noted that such women create an unhealthy emotional, spiritual and mental bond with their pimps thinking that amid all the pain and all the fear of being killed, things can get better even while being in the industry.
She not only knows this by fact but by experience. When she decided to leave the sex industry she went back to it many times. After all, it was a world she was an expert in.
"Hookers: Saved on the Strip" portrays the struggles women face while trying to live a healthy life. For many, minimum wage is a tough reality. One of the women, Regina, who tried to work earning minimum wage, recalls, "The last paycheck I got, I could've made that in an hour." After being in the industry for 14 years, Regina is left in a social void, where she can't get a real job because she doesn't have the skills, and where she can't truly socialize because she is used to getting things her way.
Ultimately, through the TV show, Lobert wants to let the church and the world know "that it's not fair to judge these women."
"They are children of God that we need to love," she said.
"Hookers: Saved on the Strip" premieres Wednesday at 10 p.m. ET on the Investigation Discovery channel.
