The other night we had the opportunity to go into Patong. The plan was to hand out tracts and dvds of the Jesus Film to anyone and everyone that would accept. Patong is a place of restaurants, bars, massage parlors, stores, hotels, and a whole lot of tourist. The main attraction to this area is not the food or the alcohol, but it is the women. Beautiful Asian woman line the streets soliciting men to come into the parlor, restaurant, or bar where they “work”.
The weird thing is – I have heard about this – human trafficking… But, hearing about it and seeing it are definitely two very different things. I only walked these streets for a few hours but my heart will be forever changed because of it. I have never in my life been in a place that was – first of all, so visually and audibly dizzying – but spiritually overwhelming. The heaviness and sadness and hopelessness was almost too much to bare. I still really do not know what to make of it all… how to honestly process it.
I did look up some facts and statistics on human trafficking… and I thought I would share them with you.
– One million women from Burma, Southern China, Laos, and Vietnam have been trafficked to Thailand.
– 20 years ago, Thailand was in the forefront as a sending county for trafficked women. Thailand now has become a destination country, receiving women from Russia, Yugoslavia, Poland, and the Czech and Slovak Republics, and South America.
– The internal traffic of Thai females consist of mostly 12-16 year olds.
– Young girls have been sold for as little as US$16.00.
– UNICEF estimates that there are at least a million child prostitutes in Asia alone, with the greatest number of these in India, Thailand, Taiwan, and the Philippines.
-Victims of trafficking are easily deceived or lured because they face poverty, unemployment, broken families, unstable governments, and also kidnapping.
-Thailand is becoming a center for human trafficking, taking people form neighboring countries and sending it’s own citizens to other developed nations.
I do not really know how to put this experience into words… so I decided to just show you… But, I must warn you, it is possible that the video provided is R rated…
