Human Sex Trafficking

So while the guys were engaging in “Manistry,”  the girls were working with victims of the Red Light district.  Its tough to summarize the experience of all 5 of my girls plus the experiences of the other 7-girl team, but I’m going to try.  Here are excerpts from Keturah and Michelle’s blogs

The girls in this video are
“prostitutes.� The footage was taken on the streets of Patong, Thailand. I’ve
made friends with these girls; they’re a lot like me. They dress normal when I
see them during the day: jeans and a cute tee-shirt, strappy sandals, and a
stylish bag. I wouldn’t think they were “prostitutes� if I hadn’t been told.

There was one bar I would
visit every night, mostly to see Didi. Didi is a gorgeous 25-year old, who’s so
petite that she looks about 15. She always smiled so big when she saw me
coming, and gave me the tightest hugs, like she never wanted to let go. Usually
her bar was empty, it was near the end of Soi Eric and there was less traffic
there. But one night a huge party of Australian men took over the bar, and when
I came up, Didi had a client. She was sitting in the lap of a drunk man, doing
a very good job of playing the part. She was laughing and flirting and downing
rum like I’d never seen! Something twisted in my stomach to see her acting like
that. My nights with Didi involved games, conversations, fun and genuine
laughter. I felt betrayed by her behavior, and she looked embarrassed by it.
She hugged me even longer than usual, and I knew right then that she was
drinking so much because she couldn’t make it through the night with that man
sober.

I introduced myself to the
guy, and we talked for a few minutes. He was sociable, until I told him that
Didi was my friend and I came to hang out with her every night. Suddenly he
acted like I was bothering him, and turned his attention away. When I left the
bar a little while later, Didi latched onto me and joked “OK I’m going with you
now! Let’s go!� I laughed and wished that she really would come with me. She
gave me one last helpless look and whispered, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry!� before
turning back to her customer.

I wonder why it bothered
that man so much to hear me say that Didi was my friend. I didn’t say it in an
accusing way. He had no idea why I visited Didi, or why I was in Patong. But
suddenly his attitude changed, and he didn’t want to talk to me anymore. I
wonder if he felt convicted. Had he never thought of Didi as a regular girl,
with real friends and a normal life? Had the title “Prostitute� de-humanized
her, even before they ever met?

Another night, we had a
band with us that played worship in a bar. (It was one of the most surreal and
amazing nights I’ve experienced on the race, but that’s another story for
another time…) Outside of the bar, a young guy stopped to enjoy the music.
Something told me to go and talk to him. I didn’t want to, but the thought kept
nagging me. I talked to God about it for a minute, “God what am I going to say
to that man? I don’t know why I should talk to him!� God told me to compliment
him on his fedora, and he would take care of the rest. So I walked outside and
stood near to him awkwardly for a song and a half, arguing with God in my head.
“Are you sure you want me to
talk to him? This is awkward! He’s gonna think I’m such a creeper!�

It was still a yes. I took
a step closer to him.

“I like your hat.�

He smiled and immediately
the conversation took off. He introduced himself (we’ll call him “Hal�) and we
talked about a variety of things for the next 10 or 15 minutes- we were
laughing and having a great conversation. Eventually he asked what I was doing
in Patong. When I told him, instantly his defenses went up.

“Why do you want to take
the girls out of prostitution? They like their jobs, that’s why they do them.
There’s no other way for them to provide for their families. I know it’s sad
and dirty, and I don’t like it either, but it’s not like they’re kids. They
don’t have any other way to make money, that’s just the way it is.�

I hadn’t said anything
condemning, but he felt the need to defend himself for being in Patong, and to
defend the industry of prostitution. When he was done scrambling for excuses
and tripping over his words, I looked him right in the eyes and said, “Have you
ever asked one of the girls if she likes her job?�

“No, but… but…â€�  Again he started a nervous ramble about
how he was sure they liked it, and it wasn’t that bad, and they needed these
jobs, and they would get out if they hated it.

I waited for him to finish
before I said, “Well I’ve asked a lot of them and they all say they hate it.� I
explained a little bit about how girls get tricked, coerced, or sold into
trafficking. Hal visibly became more uneasy as I talked, and after a few
minutes he changed the subject back to something more comfortable. Soon the
band stopped playing, and the conversation ended, and Hal and I went our
separate ways.

One of the girls on my team
later told me she saw Hal after our conversation. His buddy was trying to pull
him into a bar after bar, obviously wanting to spend time with the bar girls
and have a “fun� night. Hal kept refusing, saying he didn’t feel like going in.
He let his friend go into a bar and pull a woman into his lap, and Hal turned
off Bangla Road and walked away by himself.

I wonder how many men
refuse to think about these “prostitutes� as real women? Maybe being in a
foreign country isolates this experience so they can’t relate it to the women
they know. To the men, these girls are strangers; they’re not sisters, or
daughters or friends.

“They’re just dirty, needy,
hookers.�

How can you look at the
girls in this video and tell me they’re “just hookers?� I see a girl my age who
wasn’t given the opportunities I had. I see a mother desperate to feed her
babies. I see somebody’s baby girl, grown up too soon. What do you see?

 One of my favorite movies of all time is Pretty Woman with Julia Roberts. I couldn’t help but think of some of the similarities with what I have seen on Bangla Road.

Vivian gets her fairy-tale ending. Edward falls madly in love with her
and supposedly they live happily ever after. Julia Roberts portrays a
character. This isn’t her life. For the women that I met, this is their
life. This is how they know how to put food on the table, to pay for
her daughter’s cell phone minutes, to pay for her son’s dream of being
a doctor or to take care of years of family debt.

They dream about leaving and having a man save them from this job that can easily be and has been portrayed as glamorous.

The original intenttion of Pretty Woman
was not meant to be a romantic comedy. In the original ending, Edward
literally drops her off somewhere on the street and she is begging him
to love her. He leaves her with all the boxes of clothing and goods he
bought and she falls asleep sobbing-alone in the streets with the
memory of false love and gifts that were purchased.

People thought that the ending was too harsh and wanted to leave
feeling great. Isn’t that how everyone wants to feel about life-that we
all live happily ever after? That it’s all roses and peaches?

Yes the ending may have been too harsh but it’s realistic. It’s real
life. It happens. Daily, women in Patong are left heartbroken, sad and
lonely because of the false promises of love or affection the men
showed or because of movies like Pretty Woman.

Contrary to popular belief, Girls do not only “wanna have fun.” They
want and deserve more. They want and desire love. Their fairy tale
ending can only be found in the Prince of Peace, the greatest love-God
Almighty. I pray that these women stop hoping for someone to sweep them
away and realize that God is already absolutely in love with them.