A
Moot Choice
I have heard many people tell me
that women who work in brothels in SE Asia choose to be there. I completely disagree. When your family, community, and culture
expect you to work in a brothel once you turn a certain age so you can provide for the family, and that is the
only choice you have available to make, it is not a choice at all. The definition of choice is: an act of
selecting or making a decision when faced with two or more possibilities. Even if they seem happy to be there, are they
really!? People are good at faking their
feelings. Look at your Facebook
newsfeed!
Some people have told me, “well
these ladies are providing for their family.” My reply to that is “why don’t
these men just give them money and leave it at that instead of taking advantage of
the socioeconomic status of these women?”
You tell me “they got to work for
it. They can’t just go through life
expecting hand outs.” Well my response to that is, why don’t these men invest
in programs that can better the lives and communities these women come
from? If the demand for prostitution and
pornography was non-existent then they would earn an income some other way. Prostitution, pornography, and human
trafficking would cease to exist if there was no demand for it! But because these selfish men who visit
brothels “need” to have their selfish sexual desires fulfilled, and
prostitution is a quick and easy way to earn some money, then other options do
not exist for these women. So we are back to the question of this really being
their choice.
(If you want to know more about why
I feel this way check out this past blog I wrote titled Supply and Demand go Hand in Hand.)
My Visit
to the Red Light District
On Valentines Day I went to a Red
Light District in CM to hand out flowers, candy, and free hugs. This is not my first exposure to Red Light
District outreach. I spent many weekends
in Korea doing this as well as some time in Brazil. I even had some brief exposure during my time
in Orlando. But this time it was so
different from any other time.
There were foreign men EVERYWHERE,
from all over the world! There were wasted
foreign men soliciting me for sex. There were foreign men asking me what we
were doing and why. One guy even walked up to me and gave me money. When I asked him what it was for he said, “I’m returning
an act of kindness.” I wanted to tell
him his kindness would be better spent outside of that place but I let it
go.
I found myself getting so extremely
angry at these men! “Don’t they know
what they are doing!!!!?" I kept saying to myself! The gratification of their
desires is fueling an industry of slavery! On top of that I know some of those men had to
be married!!! How could they do this to
their wives and family!!!?
But then God reminded me stop
judging because they need Jesus love too! They are slaves too! Those men that
were there that night were searching for something to fill the emptiness in
their lives. They thought they could
find it in a brothel, and that night they were right. I had the answer but kept it from them
because I was so pissed off at them. God reminded me that He loves them and
wants them to know Him too! It was then
I forced myself to be kind to them, and answer their questions with all love
and humility, treating them with the same kindness as the women I intended to
reach out to that night.
I saw girls who looked like they
enjoyed what they were doing and I saw girls who looked hopelessly lost,
desperate to be somewhere else and terrified at what the rest of the night
would have in store for them. Some of
the ladies seemed shy to receive the gifts and others received them with open
arms! Some of the ladies even gave me a
gift for giving them something.
One girl begged me not to leave
asking me to stay and keep talking to her. Another girl started pouring out her heart to
me about how her boyfriend recently broke up with her. While she shared her “customer”
sitting at the bar next to her, pretended like he cared with his fake sympathy
and she was falling for it. I watched another
girl who looked very sick and fragile shake her head lightly as her boss told
her to get upstairs, change, and get ready to work. I saw many forced smiles on
the faces of gorgeous women and despair in their deep, dark, beautiful
eyes.
I saw one young, despondent teenage
girl sitting in a tuk-tuk, with a look of dread on her face. I have worked with
some girls who have been rescued from this type of situation. When I went to give her a gift she forced a
smile and my heart broke thinking about how this was probably what the life of
one of the girls I have grown to love so much looked like. I prayed for her
rescue to come quickly! I prayed for her
to keep hope that one day she can be saved! I prayed that she would have
freedom that night!
I saw more lady-boys than I have
ever seen in my life! And most of them
were prettier than me!! Some of them you
could tell were men but a lot of them I had no idea until they spoke! They were
some of the chattiest of all the people I met that night. It seemed like a lot of the ones I spoke to
just wanted to be known, wanted to be accepted, wanted to be listened to,
wanted to be loved for being themselves.
This people group is a part of Thailand I have not had much exposure to
yet. I wasn’t really sure how to respond
to them in that situation so I just listened to them and danced with them!
The night was great! I hope to go
back again, with a different attitude and a more open heart. I hope to make more friends there and love
everyone like Jesus himself would if he were walking through that place. I realized Sunday how much I miss this type of
outreach and look forward to going back!
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| The sign says "free hugs" in Thai (gaud free) |
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