I think I met ‘the other side’ on Friday night. By ‘the other side’, I am talking about what many of us believe to be a huge slip of humanity: Human Slavery and Sex Trafficking. I met the opposer of the reality of this trade.
So, I am standing on the street with my cardboard sign and across from me sits a man with his signs. Basically he is selling answers to any question and some sort of fortunes with dice. Somehow we get to talking about what countries I will be going to and he precedes to tell me his opinions on Cambodia and Thailand. He ends up focusing on Thailand and the prostitution. When he hears that many of our teams work with the organizations helping get women off the street, he scoffs at it. In his eyes, all those women choose that lifestyle and that us ‘white’ people make up the ‘stuff’ about sex slavery. “None of those women are forced into it…!” 
How is a girl to respond? During the conversation that followed, this man blatently loved to hear his own voice and would barely let me get a word in edgewise. My voice was heard when possible…..
Most of the girls come from working in rice fields and start to make more money then they could ever dream off…..more then doctors in Thailand……”they love it.” Well, I say what about the girls who are exploited, who are promised a life of glamour…without realizing what that life really means. Then too ashamed to return to their families, they make money and send it home. What about the girls who are abused and fear for their life and their families lives is placed in them? What about the girls who are sold by their families or just forced into prostitution? How about the fact that 80,000 women and children have been sold into the sex industry in Thailand 1990 to 1998?
Finally I had to stop him and point blank ask him: “Did you ever buy women over there?” His response: “Of course I did!” Then his conversation switched to very graphic details about it, about the strippers there, and so much more. He tried to justify what he did and said that he “never took a girl against her will…..well only a couple times but I brought them back after I realized it.” It’s funny how after he admitted it, what his opinions about the trade became completely swayed.
He met his wife over in Thailand and she had a couple of kids (I think he might have other kids over there with other women too); and she is pregnant again. His response to that is a man never “really knows” if the child is his. Why did I stand there and listen to him? This man with no shame……who talked to me like I was a buddy in a bar….me a girl in love with Jesus?? I almost felt like I had to…..like I couldn’t act like I was better then him…..I had to stand armed with God. The whole time I was praying that God would help me to show love and not hatred. This man repulsed and disgusted me to my inner most being……but it wasn’t for me to judge him……or to hate him. After about 30 minutes, I finally had to leave this mind blowing conversation. As I wished him a good night and walked away, he was still boldly talking about the women…..no shame…..but perhaps I did see some guilt in his eyes.
Thank God that my redhead temper didn’t get the best of me…
Even if women choose to stay in this lifestyle, it doesn’t justify the people who encourage it. Why exploit someone’s poverty and vulneralbility? Why continue to demand so that traffickers supply? Human Trafficking is huge and not just in the sex industry; and it is all across the world (the States included). Saying it’s not real is slapping the amazing organizations like Exodus Cry, the Eden House, A21, etc etc. in the face. It’s also saying that the women who have escaped their captors are liars and that the hell they lived through was false. Pray for this man’s ignorance…..pray for his heart and pray for his soul.
(I’ve posted a video, by Brian Alonzo, about human trafficking, at the bottom, if you want to learn more…..it’s something I have become more and more broke for)
By the way, my sign that night said: Smile! You Are Loved. The responses to it were so much different then past signs. I received a few random hugs;; a lot of smiles, and people thanking me and meaning it. When asked about it, I was able to explain how we are never alone or unloved, because God loves us more then anyone. With the need to look good here (skinny, tan, muscles,etc.), people really seem to appreciate the encouragement.
