Over the past few months the
Lord has been opening my eyes to so many atrocities happening all over the
world. He is breaking my heart for the things that break His. One of these
atrocities is human trafficking: the trafficking of women and children as sexual
slaves. It is happening all over the world. Trafficking
in human beings is the third-largest money making venture in the world, after
illegal drugs and weapons. In fact, the United Nations estimates that the trade
nets organized crime more than $12 billion a year…[It is estimated] that
there are approximately 800,000-900,000 people trafficked across borders
worldwide. This figure doesn’t include internal trafficking, which would raise
the number to more than two million. (p. 4-5)
Impoverished
women and children all over the world are ripped from their lives and thrust
into this horrendous nightmare. They are trafficked through many different
ways, but the three most common are:
- Lured through false job advertisements
(They are offered jobs abroad as waitresses, nannies, models, and maids).
Traffickers target desperate women with little education from countries
with high unemployment rates. They offer them what they believe to be
their only way out of the poverty. - Kidnapped from the streets. Many
women and children are just stolen from towns and villages, forced into
the trunks of cars, and smuggled across borders. - Sold by parents or orphanages.
Many children are sold either by their parents or by the orphanages where
they live. Many believe that they are offering their children a better
life by sending them to another country where they will receive education
and a chance for a job. They do not realize the unspeakable horrors that
await these precious little ones.
Once they are smuggled across the
border, these women face unimaginable terror. They are locked in rooms or
basements, beated, tortured, repeatedly raped, and eventually sold to a pimp or
brothel owner. Here is Sophia’s story:
Two men with knives forced me into the car. I thought they would rape
me and then kill me. I prayed that my life would be spared. Instead I was
driven to a river crossing where they sold me to a Serbian man…[he] took me to
a small apartment in a town in the mountains…I soon learned I was in Serbia. There
were so many young girls in there. They were from Moldova,
Romania, Ukraine, and Bulgaria. Some were crying. Others
looked terrified…All the time, very mean and ugly men cam in and dragged girls
into rooms. Sometimes they would rape girls in front of us. They yelled at them,
ordering them to move in certain ways… to pretend excitement… to moan. It was
sickening. Those who resisted were beaten. If they did not cooperate, they were
locked in dark cells with rats with no food or water for three days. I dreaded
that moment. In the first day, I thought to myself, I will fight back. Then I
saw what they did to one girl who refused…I knew I did not have the strength to
endure what would surely follow if I resisted. That night, I just wanted to
die. I was so humiliated. To these men, I was just a piece of meat. From that
moment on, I have felt like filth. I cannot wash that feeling from my body or
my mind no matter how hard I try. (p. 33-35)
These women and raped and
brutalized over and over. They are in foreign lands where they know no one and
do not speak the language. More often than not, if they try to go to the
police, they are arrested for prostitution. They feel as though there is no way
to escape.
On the surface it’s hard to tell [prostitutes and trafficked girls]
apart. They dress and look the same. They have the same inviting expression.
They smile, they pose, they flaunt and they strut. That’s what prospective
clients and the public see in the bars or on the streets… What they miss
entirely is the darker side of the trade. It’s an ugly side, hidden behind
heavy padlocked doors in rooms with iron bars on the windows and armed thugs in
the halls. There, the striking blonde smiling coyly on the street may have been
beaten with electrical wires the evening before….This is the side that keeps
them on the street and this is the side that keeps smiles on their lips. They
stay because they fear what will happen if they run… and they smile because
they know what will happen if they don’t. If their “clients” looked closely at
the bodies they’re using, they just might see some of the telltale signs-
bruises peeking through under cheap flesh-colored makeup, whip marks on the
buttocks, cigarette burns on the arms. If they paused long enough…to actually
look into these women’s eyes, they might see frustration, revulsion, anger,
shame… if they asked the woman they’re with… they might hear how she was
kidnapped from an orphanage in Ukraine, smuggled out of the country, sold at an
auction and forced unto the street by a money-grubbing pimp who forces her to
bring in $500 a night…they’re forced to do whatever it takes with whoever asks,
as long as he pays, and they’re forced to do it with a smile on their face, a
sparkle in their eyes and a moan on their lips…exactly as trained. (p. 42-43)
This blog just skims the surface of
this overwhelming and dehumanizing industry. Before the Race, I had heard the
term ‘human trafficking’ but I didn’t really know anything about it. But now I
have seen it with my own eyes. I have met the children that are at risk to be
trafficked. I have walked down the street lined with bars in Pattaya and seen a
2nd floor bar that boasts having all Russian girls. Human
trafficking is happening all around us. The problem is not only overseas. Atlanta has one of the highest populations of trafficked
children in the United
States.
The more I have learned and
researched, the angrier I become and the more passionate I become about raising
awareness among the church. We cannot sit idly by!! The church needs to be
taking a stand against this darkness! If you’re heart is stirred for these
women and children and you want to get involved in the fight against human
trafficking, here are some resources and organizations that can help you learn
more.
*All
italicized quotes come from the book The Natashas: Inside the New Global Sex
Trade by Victor Malarek
