As we stood there with these women, I couldn’t help but notice the newness of their skin, how young their skin looked. How old were they? Were they 18? Were they the legal age limit to be an entertainer? Were they women or were they still little girls? I was surrounded by girls who looked no older than 15 or 16 who spent their nights entertaining men who were twice if not three times older than they were?
I couldn’t help but think of my sibling at that age or my best friend’s sibling working in the entertainment business trying to live. We are told of some who are involved in what is called prosti-tuition, girls/women who are trying to entertain to pay for college. How humbled am I in this moment in which I realize girls will give intimate pieces of them away to gain an education in order to live better…
I stand in the midst of these girls and want to sit and be, for lack of a better word, frank with them…..I want to say what are you doing? Do you not see what you are doing? Do you not see the intimate pieces of you disappearing before you? Do you not see the rubble from the destructive fire all around you? Take my hand. Let me take you to my home to get back on your feet and find a God who provides, a God who holds the universe in His hands, a God who disciplines because He loves, a God who calls you daughter.
In the midst of thinking those things I am humbled yet again. Of course she, the daughter of a banker or the daughter of a former entertainer, knows what she is doing……She needs no one to remind her how it feels to give pieces of herself away or what she feels like at the end of the night when the fifth man leaves.
Our ministry this month was involved with women in the entertainment industry and although entertainer is supposed to be simply that, an entertainer,she is more. She does not only dance but she also is a victim of prostitution. After dancing/entertaining, if a man wants to leave the club with her, he is to pay the bar fine, the fine that seemed to be created because the women weren’t to leave.
We were briefly introduced to the world of prostitution in the Philippines and I learned that most women become victims of prostitution due to poverty. We were told that a lot of the women go into the industry trying to relieve their families, which includes immediate family such as their parents and siblings, of poverty. I learned that some of these women are trafficked into it being told that they are going to become waitresses.
I can not help but admire these women for their strength. To think of them better than myself. Loving their families enough to provide for them in one of the most desolate ways.
Whether these women are women trying to raise a family or support her own, or little girls that should be in high school dreaming of college and her husband, I pray that God protects them. I pray that He leads them to healing and restoration. I struggle with writing this blog as if I understand even the surface because the truth is I don’t. I know very little. I did not sit in front of any of these girls and hear their stories but I pray that God protects their story. I pray He shows them His way which involves healing, restoration, eternal life, understanding. I pray that He restores their idea of love and sex which God gave as gifts, beautiful gifts.
