I met a girl today, I‘ll call her Beloved….she is a “lady of the night”. I was working at the front desk of the health clinic. The girls in the clubs are required to get a PAP Smear every week and my job was to take their papers, look at their records, and see if I was able to stamp their card with the word “negative” or with other letters that represent infection or disease. I was able to talk to Beloved and found out that she is 23 years old and has two children; 3 months old and 1 year old. Her children live in Manila with her family. Beloved works at a club in Baguio (6 hours away from Manila) so she can support her ENTIRE family. In Filipino culture, the children, most likely the women, are required to support their family. What typically happens is that the pimps go into these very poor communities, into many different regions of the country, to recruit girls. Normally they are coerced with hopes of becoming a waitress or with similar job opportunities and then these pimps offer mere pocket change to the unknowing parents if they release their daughters.
She just kept telling me how important family was and that family was the priority. She also told me she has her high school diploma (which is a rare thing in this industry) and had dreams of becoming a doctor.
I wanted to scream.
It’s not fair that she has to be away from her children.
It’s not fair that the responsibility lies on her to support her family.
It’s not fair that she was born into these circumstances… and I wasn’t.
It’s not fair.
What can I possibly do? I felt completely helpless. I can’t offer her an alternative job. I can’t tell her to go to college and become a doctor because how could she afford it and who would support her family? And anyway, who am I to tell her these things? I went through the list in my head of things I can’t do and realized that there were also things I CAN do. I CAN tell her she is beautiful, I CAN tell her she is loved, I CAN tell her that she is valuable, I CAN tell her to keep dreaming.
I hate injustice, I hate that this business is supported worldwide. I hate it. It makes me sick. And what’s more is that this is just one story of the thousands like it.
Last night we had the chance to visit some of the girls in their workplace. The first thing I noticed was the sign on the wall, “no refunds”. are you kidding me? Then one of the girls we were talking to kept saying ” I so ugly” “I so ugly”. No girl should ever think that about herself, let alone, speak it aloud. We were able to have this amazing opportunity to love these girls and tell them how beautiful they are.. this month we are BLESSED with the opportunity to encourage these girls to dream. We get to be girls, together. They are just like us; they have likes and dislikes, they giggle about boys and want to be beautiful.
A woman named Angie was the one who showed us around the clubs last night. She is a former victim of prostitution and is a former club manager. She was able to speak to these girls in a language they could relate to and understand. She explained to them that if there was ever a problem, if there was ever abuse involved, if they needed a way out, for them to call her. Then she closed the time in prayer. How awesome is that? In the middle of the massage parlor.
These things seem so unfair and make my blood boil, but there is hope to be had. There is a God. A God who is big and wants us to ask for big things. This is not the way He intended creation to be- He is coming back to restore and to bring things to completion. There will be full healing, full understanding, full justice, and full reconcilliation. He will wipe away every tear. But in the meantime, be urgently praying and thinking. God’s call for us is to work with Him with what He started on the cross…
