In a land painted with beaches and palm trees lies the darkest place I have ever seen. This place is made up to look like Paradise. The bright florescent lights are used to blind people from the dark reality. Phuket, Thailand is home to one of the worst human trafficking Red-light districts in the world. During the day Bangla Street is disguised as a fun street to souvenir shop and eat good street food but at night it is transformed into a place of emptiness and lust. A place where women are held captive and forced to be used and abused over and over again. Everywhere you look women are stripped naked but covered in brokenness and pain. You can hardly walk three feet before someone approaches you about a free ping pong show (where women literally shoot ping pong balls out of their vaginas). Walk a few more feet and a man will try to get you to watch a turtle crawl out of a woman’s genitals. Another couple feet you will be told inside you can have whatever you want. Young women and lady-boys fill the street selling their bodies but on their face you see undeniable sadness.
As my team and I suited up in the armor of God we prepared ourselves for battle. Three of us went out while the other half of us stayed in the hotel praying and interceding. No matter where you were you were surrounded by darkness. Gina, Jenna, and I hit the streets first. Earlier that day we all walked around and prayed for the night. It was shocking to see the transformation of the street. We decided to walk the strip and pray. Two young women stood out like soar thumbs. They were the only girls that were actually dressed. They stood in pastel long flowing dresses one pink the other blue. They were the only foreign women with blonde hair and blue eyes being solicited. The young women were holding signs saying, “Russian ladies inside”. As we walked by they turned away and refused to make eye contact. On our way back up the street we saw them again one turned away the other put a sign in front of her face. It was as if it literally hurt them to look at us. The girl in the pink dress pierced my heart. I was only able to look into her eyes for a brief moment but that was more than enough time to see all the fear and brokenness. We stood no more than twenty feet away from them. Although our flesh didn’t want to go deeper into the darkness we knew we had to; for God did not give us timid hearts. When we turned back to approach them they were gone. We had no idea where they disappeared to.
We knew what we were coming into was going to be hard and painful. But the thing none of us were prepared to see was all the children being exposed to this distorted place. Families with little kids on vacation walking around like this was Disney Land. Fathers with their pre-teen sons proud to introduce them to a world of lust and false love. Every few seconds another child would walk by with big eyes and my heart broke again.
We decided to sit at a bar and wait for the Russians to return. We prayed for the children that passed by. We engaged in conversation with the bartender. Chelsea was a beautiful 33 year old with 7 children. As we asked her questions she questioned us why we were asking, she revealed no one had ever tried to get to know her before. The reality is no one asks because they don’t want to know that behind all of this they are mothers, daughters, sisters or even recognize them as a person they would rather see them as an object. As it was about to strike 11:00 our shift was coming to an end so we returned to the hotel. The worse is yet to come.
To be continued……
