Deputies raided an Iowa church and removed 88 children participating in a Bible study camp as part of a sweeping human trafficking investigation, police said Monday.
The youngsters are now in protective custody of local agencies after they were taken from the Shekinah Glory Camp run by Kingdom Ministry of Rehab and Recreation, according to police and local reports.
Deputies executing search warrants removed the children over the weekend and took them to nearby Wapello Methodist Church to meet with child protection workers, deputies told KWQC.
The Iowa Department of Health and Human Services placed the children in temporary foster care until they could be reunited with their parents or guardians, deputies added.
The Kingdom Ministry of Rehabilitation and Recreation, founded in 2018, was hosting the summer camp from June 8-29.
The family behind the ministry that runs the camp in Columbus Junction denied the allegations, according to WQAD8.
“What we try to do is, we take care of adults and children who are under the influence of drugs, alcohol, nicotine,” Victor Bawi, whose parents run the ministry, told the outlet.
“The adults and children, we take care of them, we provide food for them. The children we separate from the adults. We separate the boys and girls. We care for them, we provide for them.”
Bawi told KWQC that a teen from Texas called authorities because he didn’t want to attend the camp.
Bawi said no children were ever in danger or harmed.
“We never harmed that child. We loved him,” he said. We bought him like $400 shoes, clothing, everything.”
Christian teenagers from across the nation attend the camp, he added.
Bawi told WQAD8 that when the children aren’t studying the Bible, they have fun playing volleyball, soccer and other outdoor activities.
Deputies executed search warrants at several locations — one where the camp was taking place in Columbus Junction, and another less than two miles away in Fredonia, where the church helps people find housing.
The Louisa County Sheriff’s Office said the operation took place in coordination with the Iowa Department of Health and Human Services, Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation and Columbus Junction Police Department, according to WQAD8. The investigation remains ongoing.
The church is run by two pastors from Burma. They are members of the Chin, an ethnic minority, according to an Iowa cultural organization. Iowa has resettled thousands of refugees fleeing the longest-running civil war in the world.
Iowa has one of the largest Burmese populations in the Midwest, and Columbus Junction had a significant number in the area. Many of the refugees are poor and work in the Tyson’s Food Inc. meat packing plant, where the company has translators on premises. The plant is responsible for 2% of the hogs slaughtered each year in the nation.
Burma, also known as Myanmar, is one of the countries added to the controversial list of countries banned for entry to the US by the State Department on June 16.
