Sex Trafficking in Patong Beach, Thailand

The flashing lights of the clubs illuminated the sky. The loud club music, unclothed skin, cool, crisp alcoholic beverages, and energetic crowd echoed throughout the atmosphere and intertwined in and out of the city streets. Women, men, floods of bodies chasing after the fantasies of good times were running rampantly from building to building, bar to bar, dark hallway to dark hallway, as our van stopped just outside the main strip of pavement where the majority of our night would consist of. We were here, Patong Beach, the biggest area for sex trafficking and prostitution.
 
Sex trafficking is the illegal trade of human beings mainly for the purposes of commercial sexual exploitation. In Thailand, sex trafficking is a growing crime, with 40% of prostitutes being children.
 
I remember I was introduced to the reality of sex trafficking last year at the famous young people’s conference Passion in Atlanta, Georgia. Sex trafficking is rampant around the world. From the United States to Thailand, billions of dollars are spent for the opportunity to sexually exploit a human being. But this blog isn’t so much a place for statistical information on this global epidemic as it is my observational account of the darkest place I’ve probably ever been.
 
 
The night started with us getting together and spending some time meditating, praying, and worshipping the Lord. Fifteen guys from all walks of life, uniting together as a band of brothers, preparing to go as light shining into the abyss of a dark and desolate place. I’ve spent the last year asking God how I could bring some tangible change to the world of sex trafficking. Not just money contribution, not just social media awareness, but hands-on warfare. And now, as the palms of my hands clenched tightly around my black-leather Bible and the sound of my voice rang into the night screaming praise to the Father like a battle cry of a soldier ready for war, this was the time that the full circle of God’s grace would come to pass after a year of wanting to do something and the fulfillment of God’s promise of “sending” when one cries out “I’ll go.” It was time to go to Patong Beach.

 
I remember as a kid watching war movies like “Saving Private Ryan”, I would go outside with my little brother and a stick in my hand and I would use my imagination and pretend I was in a war boat heading into battle on the beaches of Normandy. Men piled together, the anxious moment of the final minutes before landing into the battle field, the reality of the fact that there is no return; this was the things I ate up in my mind as a child. But this was not pretend. This wasn’t an afternoon time of play. This was war. We weren’t going to need protection against grenades and bullets, but of spiritual and physical evil. And as we piled into the van and headed to Patong, the reality of what we were about to do began to sink deep into my soul.
 
Pass the round-about.
Over the bridge.

We’re getting closer.

Renew my mind O Lord.
  
    “The Lord is my Sheppard.”
             “There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ.”
                  “God is our Refuge and Strength.”
 
We passed the Patong traffic sign.

We’re getting closer.
 
     “O Lord, let me be Your vessel of mercy and grace.
           Count not my sins against me.
                 Let Thy goodness bind my wandering heart.
                       Be near to me.”
 
The light has turn green.
There’s a lot of traffic.
Heart is racing.
 
“O what joy it is to be chosen to be Your servant, to be Your light.
        Lord, You are good.”
 
There’s a lot of people.
We take a left.

We’ve stopped.

We’re here.

As we stepped out of the van, immediately the energy of the nightlife raced through my body. Lights. Loudness. Music. Skin. Laughter. The images of my expectations were slowly erased by the reality of what was in front of me. Now, what I’m about to say is probably the most shocking thing about this whole night, because the truth of the matter was that this place, this dark, evil place, was more like home than what I imagined.
 
At first I was startled. Patong Beach looked more like Daytona Beach. There was loud club music, much of it I’ve heard before. “There were restaurants I’d eat at. Look, this sports bar has my favorite soccer team playing. Wait, what is this place? This isn’t the evil horrors that I’d imagine. I mean, there are gift shops, a Starbucks, a McDonalds?”
 
This looks like the United States.
 
And with that thought, the horror began to sink in…
 
Internet pornography is a $100 billion industry. The porn industry makes more money than the NBA, NFL, and MLB combine. Our Western consumption of sexual immorality in the form of porn is enormous, and what pains me to see is that we’re not that far away from having Daytona Beach become like Patong Beach. If anything, our favorite fast food restaurant and coffee shop is only a couple steps ahead. Sex trafficking is indeed illegal is the United States. But with the reality of our addiction to sex as it is and our demoralization as a whole and the growing number of people involved in sex trafficking in the United States, I wouldn’t be surprised if I saw some people I knew, friends, family, involved in sex exploitation if indeed it ever did become legal. It’s already here in my own backyard.
 
But even with this distasteful comfort I found in Patong as looking like home away from home, the makeup she wore disguising herself as home began to diminish with every step I took. There she really was. Behind the smiles and coffee comforts was a hideous monster ever present, like a lion prowling, looking for someone to be devoured; not with fangs, but with comfort. She uses Western tourism to bring people in, to numb your mind into thinking that this isn’t such a bad place. She speaks to your flesh:
 
“This is a place where you can have fun! Calm down, have a drink! It’s okay! While you’re here, why don’t you violently rape one of our girls we’ve trafficked into here!”
 
With every temptation that this place could throw, we were going in to bring kingdom.
 
We split up into two teams, one on each side of the street. We began walking, praying for people we saw, for the people we knew were there behind closed door that we couldn’t see, for the overall state that Patong was in, and for the future of freedom for those bound by such brutal bondage. The stench of liquor was thick. The lights and sounds were piercing through the air. One by one, we arrived and departed from bar, brothel, and business. People who worked for the brothels would come up to us with flyers of their shows. Portraits of naked women on their pamphlets, advertising them like menu items for a buffet. They call them “Ping-Pong Shows.” Some cost the equivalent of $2, $1. Some were free of charge. No money, going to any of the women being used for tonight’s entertainment. As you walk down the road, windows of brothels and night clubs were occupied with a strip pole and a woman. No smile. No hint of enjoyment from her. Just a blank stare as she twists and twirls her body around the metal instrument of advertisement.
Building after building.
      Window after window.
           Pole after pole.
                     Girl after girl.
                                 Emotionless.
 
“O God. Bring freedom!”
My heart cries out.
 
We get to the other side of the street where the beach and small food vendors are located at. I saw a woman selling roses. Beautiful, red roses. I saw another woman with no hands selling cigarettes. The nubs of her arms pressed together as she picked up each pack to give to her customers. “Give her a rose.” I felt that tug on your heart that you know only One person can do. I quickly ran over to the lady who was selling roses, picked out the most beautiful one I could find, and ran to the woman selling cigarettes.
 
 
“Sa-wat-dee kraup”, I said; Hello in Thai, as I bow down to greet her.
“Sa-wat-dee kah”, she said to me.
 
I handed her the rose. I prayed that somehow, someway, sometime soon, the Holy Spirit would tell her that she was beautiful. She said “Kap-coon-ka;” thank you in Thai. She bowed her head. I bowed mine again. She put the rose against her, nudged in between her body and the packages of cigarettes she was selling. And that was it.
 
I wish I could have given every single woman on that street a rose and told them that they were beautiful. It reminded me of an old sermon one of my favorite preachers had done; that Jesus, despite how messed up or destroyed it gets, He wants the rose. There’s nothing that any of these women, nor I, nor you can do that can separate the love that God has for us. I just want to tell them, cry with them, break them free from this monstrous place, and let them know that Jesus loves them.
 
The teams switched sides and began to go back down the street, praying fervently.
Building after building.
      Window after window.
           Pole after pole.
                     Girl after girl.
                                 Emotionless.
 
There’s a Russian brothel. Moulin Rouge. The Russians traffic their own women here, telling them that they are going to have an exotic job in paradise. Instead, they’re either used for their bodies or are sent into the streets to lure men into the brothels. One Russian woman is dancing inside a window two stories above the street for all to see like a window display for sexual fantasies. Underneath are three to four Russian women with fliers, handing them out to any guy they can convince to come in, including us. The danger with the Russians who work in Phuket, Patong, and the rest of Thailand is that they are violent. They’re known for using violence to “take care” of anyone who tries to stop what they’re doing. They hire drug addicts for as little as $200 to take out anyone who tries and disturbs their business. And glory to God, we’re here bringing freedom to the very women they enslave.

 
The women come to us. They know English well. They’re trained, dehumanized, to lure men to the brothel. It’s sad. Their white complexion, floral dresses, they look like any of my friends from home. I watch in horror.

“She could be my friend.”
“What if this was Meaghan, Shannon, Jesse, Jessica?”

I pass by them, praying like I’ve never prayed before.
 
I take one more glance back. My eyes catch one of the girl’s eyes. For a moment, time stands still. For a moment, as a soft chill crawls slowly up my back, she and I exchange this sudden eye contact. She’s no longer a stranger, no longer a girl. She’s a soul. I’m staring not at flesh and blood, but at a human being.
 
Just pause for a quick second and recognize this. Look at the person closest to you. Just stare at them, deep into their eyes if you can. If you look closely, deeply enough, pass the skin, pass the eyes themselves, you can recognize this divine, supernatural reality. This person isn’t just flesh. They’re not just skin, a face, a body. They’re not just alive. They’re living. There’s emotions. There’s a soul. You’re looking into someone’s soul.
 
And as her and I fixed our eyes for no more then a few seconds, there it was. I saw her. She was there. The most significant moment that night was when her and I exchanged this moment. I pray, even now, that she could see who I was; not another man looking for a good time, but someone who was sent by Someone else. I was someone who was sent by a God who loves her. A light to shine in the darkness. That’s why we were there.
 
We arrived back to where we started, and as quickly as it began, we were finished.
 
We got back to the compound we are staying at. We sat down and expressed the emotions we felt and talked about the things we witnessed. We prayed one last time, and went to our tents for the night.

Some might say that all we did was walk up and down the streets. Some might say we just wasted a couple hours of our time. But we know that we laid the spiritual foundation that this place needed, so that as full-time missionaries come in to begin the long process of freeing these enslaved women, and as they bring these newly freed women to the discipleship facility we’ve been prosperously building this past month, these women will have a new life found in the love of Jesus Christ. What happened that night will be tucked preciously in my heart for the rest of my life. What God did that night will forever change the largest location for sex trafficking in Phuket, Thailand. God moved that night. There is freedom about to explode through the cracks of the dam of sex trafficking for these men and women. The overflow of God’s love will fall down like rain on every single brothel and bar. Let it rain, Lord. Freedom reigns in this place.

Below is a small video of our experience.
Please continue to pray Patong, Thailand, and every woman and man still trapped in sex trafficking.