It all came to life. Sex trafficking and prostitution has a face, I knew it would happen eventually but I guess I wasn’t prepared for it yet.
Stephanie and I were helping our hosts, Judith and Miriam with dinner preparations when our next door neighbor came and joined us. I had yet to meet this women but we began to talk. I found out her name is “Beth”. She lives with her two children and her Swedish “husband”. I put them in quotation marks simply because she believes they are married but the more we talked I didn’t feel the same way. As we chatted she told us they met in 1998 when she was working in the bar. Her husband came to the area for business and would hang around with the women. Well a year after meeting they became “married” whatever that means considering the wedding cant be official cause he is not a citizen (at least this is what she told us). Anyway they now have two lovely children and she says she is happy because he provides her money which she otherwise would not have. I didn’t think anything was too off from the story. I mean I know foreigners who have married Filipino women and they have wonderful marriages. That to me is not the weird part, its everything else.
But then Stephanie asked the question “Beth have you ever been to Sweden before?” Her response was “no”.
That was when my mind began to think that this possibly was not a good situation. They have been together for over 10 years, they had never been officially married, and she has never been to Sweden. Oh and he only visits every six months.
I would love to be nieve about the situation but I just couldn’t, I was trying to accept that it was all good but my mind wouldn’t allow it.
Stephanie and I talked about it later and we both felt the same way. The story did not ring true. It made us both upset.
I went for a run on the beach the other day and I saw the same thing, more than once. I saw three times. Older white males with younger Filipino women. It makes me so outraged, to think that foreigners believe they have the right to come over here and take advantage of these women. This place is breathtaking on the surface, the beaches, water and people. Once you look deeper you see the secret that is being covered by this beauty. It is just so wrong.
So I ask that you would pray for these women. That they would not feel as if they need to use their bodies for money.
That you would pray for us as we begin to see firsthand what prostitution looks like in Southeast Asia. That the Lord would open up the doors for us to talk to these women and that they would be open to hearing the truth.
Until Next Time
Annalisa
