A few weeks before leaving for the World Race, I went out dancing at a club in Denver. I had a blast seeing my mega-talented friend DJ, and dancing with a big group of my college friends. We really love to dance. Near the end of the night, one of my friends was really struggling. As we were dancing together, she told me what she’d been recently emotionally dealing with and we cried together. One of those really good, really needed and intense cries that you need to have with a good friend every once in a while. While she cried into my shoulder and I hugged her, guy after guy, five total, came over and tried to hit on us. It wasn’t a sincere “hey is there anything I can do for you?” or even a forced “are you ok?” Instead it was things like “hey ladies, can I buy you a drink to drown your sorrows?” or “looks like someone needs some lovin’, good thing I’m here.” I could have hit them, I was so angry. Instead I answered with “no thank you” and “please leave us alone.” The most insistent ones pressed further with “well can I come back in 5 minutes” or “why not?” When I angrily expressed that when a girl is upset and obviously emotionally wrecked is not a great time to hit on them, one responded with a pointed “actually, I’ve found it to be the best time.” Ugh. It still makes me sick thinking about how much manipulation and exploitation is implied in that sentence.
This month, I’ve seen the effects this type of attitude can have on a mega scale. In Nepal 50,000 women are being exploited through cabin restaurants (not even including brothels, international trafficking, dance bars, etc). We had the honor of working with two women who “waitress” at a cabin restaurant, and since we have been here, we’ve seen them move from hopeless and discouraged by their lack of education, to an interview process with jobs in their area that pay considerably more and exist in artisan industries or coffee shops, many run by Christians. They both accepted Jesus and we got to spend a considerable amount of time with them just having fun like young women should be allowed to do.
*For more detail on our experience with these ladies, visit my teammate’s blog here.
Password- “missingqueso”
http://allisonngo.theworldrace.org/post/nepali-cabin-restaurants-and-a-call-to-action
One of the dearest friends I’ve made on the race so far is 18 year old Rubina. She is sassy, lovely, and such an incredible blessing to our group. She comes from a background of forced labor, manipulated substance abuse, and attempted rape. She was rescued by the ministry that we have been working with, and is one of the strongest examples of redemption I’ve seen. She is a leader within the ministry, is learning to read and write english, and dreams of being a missionary in China. She is incredible.
As much as I’ve enjoyed knowing these women, and have been filled with hope because of their stories, I can’t help but get stuck thinking about what causes these women to get stuck in these situations in the first place. Stories I heard highlighted poor families that couldn’t support them, abusive husbands, being too young to understand any better, or too depressed to care. The earthquake has forced many women down out of the villages looking for work, promised a better life than the tragedy that had struck their home. Rubina’s family couldn’t support her, so she traveled to the city looking for work when she was only 12. The one thing each of their stories had in common is that someone recruited them at their lowest point. Someone took advantage of them and exploited their weakness, created dependence, and created power of them.
The most awful thing about this is that it isn’t too different from that guy that hit on my friend in a totally-above-the-belt bar in Denver, Colorado. Anyone who takes advantage of another person for their own gain or sees weakness as opportunity, is just steps away from these pimps and clients. Anyone who acts selfishly. AKA all of us. If there wasn’t anyone to take advantage of these women, they wouldn’t be taken advantage of.
There are lots of way to start combatting this on a global scale, but it’s just as important to combat it on a personal level. We have to start celebrating each other at our best, and supporting each other at our worst. There needs to be a community against selfishness, and it needs to start with us loving one person at a time, the way Jesus loved.
