Hope for the sex industry

This month I am living right outside Kathmandu, the capitol of Nepal.
 
Nepal was a Hindu nation until 2006. Now, Nepal is:
74% Hindu
14% Buddhist
5% Muslim
1.9% Christian
 
There are 330 millions gods in the Hindu religion. Women in the Hindu religion are viewed as lower than dogs. From a young age they are told that they do not belong to their family and their only worth is in the dowry their father will receive one day. Many times the father will even kill their daughter if they do not get a sizable enough dowry.
 
Only 27% of people in Nepal have heard the gospel. The Christian Church entered into the country in the beginning of the 1950’s. Today Christians continue to face persecution and new converts continue to face social persecution and may even be ostracized from their own families. The government is currently trying to pass a law to make Christianity illegal.
 

We are working with a ministry called Asha Nepal. Asha means hope. We are living in a home with women and children that have been rescued out of the human sex industry. The women were rescued out of India, China, and other places in Nepal.  Most of the women in the sex industry are either kidnapped, sold by their own families, or willingly sell themselves because of economic reasons.
 
Approximately 200,000 Nepali women and children are trafficked around India.
In Kathmandu, Nepal’s capital, there are about 30,000 women in the sex industry while 90% are between the ages of 12 & 17. 90 percent. This means that my little sister, your daughter, my cousin, your niece, could be subjected to this horrific nightmare if they were living in Nepal.
 
Nepali police are even petitioning the local government to make an official “red light district” since the growing industry is so lucrative. Girls are broken into the trade through beating, rape, and intimidation. Many women see 10-25 men per day and 70% of these women are HIV positive.
 
It is hard to see these children laughing and think about the past that they lived through; the things that they must have seen. Most of them probably saw their mothers have several customers each day. The mothers probably deal daily with the images of the nightmare they lived through.
 
I am blessed to have the opportunity to get to know these women this month. The Asha Nepal ministry is exactly what these women and any other person stuck in the sex industry needs…