Local Event: December 2nd at Willow Creek Crystal Lake

December 2nd at 7pm Human Trafficking Quarterly Forum at Willow Creek

220 Exchange Drive, Crystal Lake

Trafficking in other countries looks much different than it does in the US. Join us as we hear from Becky Morris with Freedom Firm, an organization that rescues minor girls from trafficking in India.  Becky will be sharing stories from the field and the great work that Freedom Firm is doing to help these young girls transition from victims to survivors.  Jewelry made by the rescued girls will be available for purchase. Start your Christmas shopping early and make a difference in the life of a young girl.

Register Here

A Cup Of Tea: Spotlight On Freedom Firm

A few weekends ago I attended an event hosted by Freedom Firm, an organization that rescues minor girls from sex trafficking in India.  It was a great event with dinner and silent auction called Captive No More.  There were interactive booths where you could have a beautiful henna design done on your hand or have your picture taken in an authentic sari. 

There are 27 million slaves in the world and 500,000 of them are in India.  Extreme poverty is a factor in girls ending up in the sex trade here.  Many times they are tricked by false promise of employment.  They are often sold by a family member who thinks they are giving their child the opportunity for a better life and an education when in reality they are being sold to a brothel.

The three part mission of Freedom Firm is to Rescue, Restore and seek Justice.  They actually have investigative teams that do raids on the brothels to rescue these minor girls.  They have an aftercare home which provides holistic care for the girls and they seek justice by prosecuting the trafficker or brothel owner.

The stories shared at this event were hard to hear.  Corruption is rampant.  The police take bribes, look the other way and often times will tip off the brothel owner about a raid.  After a girl is rescued, she is placed in a government run shelter "home" which is actually more like a prison.  According to the 2013 TIP Report:

A number of government shelters were overcrowded and unhygienic, offered poor food, and provided limited services. The lack of adequate security in one government-funded home in Hyderabad made it possible for a nine-member gang to break in and kidnap four trafficking victims; two previous kidnap attempts took place in the preceding months. Some shelters did not permit adult victims to leave,  contrary to international principles on the protection of victims. In some cases, traffickers continued to re-recruit trafficking victims by approaching shelter managers and pretending to be family members to get the victims released to them. NGOs report that government processes to refer identified victims to care facilities are not followed. In investigations, police sometimes treated victims as suspected criminals and subjected them to aggressive questioning.

But the one thing that choked me up more than the stories was a picture of a teacup.  Beside the teacup were a few little white pills and this note: 

Often a girl is offered tea by the traffickers as way to comfort her and gain her trust.  Because she is in a desperate situation, she accepts the tea.  In most cases the tea is drugged.  During the time the girl is not fully conscience, she is transported and sold to a brothel.

A cup of tea is a symbol of welcome, hospitality and soothing.  It brings to mind the image of peace, tranquility and friendship.  This poor innocent child accepts a cup of tea because she is afraid.  She doesn't understand what is happening.  I picture her cold and alone and wanting to sip the tea to warm herself and calm her nerves.  But little does she know that evil lurks in her cup of tea.  An evil that knows no boundaries.  An evil that will take advantage of a little girl to exploit her and make money off of her. 

Just because this evil is happening "over there" doesn't mean there isn't something we can do.  Freedom Firm has opportunities to help wherever you live. 

• Consider hosting a jewelry party featuring jewelry that has been hand made by the girls who have been rescued. 
• Invite your friends over and host a movie screening of their documentary "Horse and Rider"
• Sign up for their real time updates and pray for the team as they are doing a rescue
• Donate to support their mission

Please visit their page to learn more about the amazing work they are doing and how you can be a part of it.  Freedom Firm

Book Review: Sold by Patricia McCormick

 

I put off reading this book because it wasn’t a true story.  I mistakenly thought, “How can they portray the horrors of the sex trade industry in a work of fiction?”  I could not have been more wrong. 

Sold is a painful look at what happened to a young girl from Nepal who was smuggled into India and sold into sexual slavery.  While this is a fictional story it is based on the truth that thousand of young girls are actually living this nightmare every day.  Lakshmi is a thirteen-year-old girl who lives with her family in a small hut on a mountain in Nepal.  The story is told through her eyes and conveys the innocence of a child trapped the horrible world of human trafficking.

Even before Lakshmi is sold into slavery, your heart breaks for her.  The living conditions are so harsh compared to the blessings we have in the United States.  She dreams that one day they will have enough for a tin roof for their little hut. 

“She is looking down the mountain to the village below, at the neighbors’ tin roofs winking cruelly back at her.  A tin roof means that the family has a father who doesn’t gamble away the landlord’s money playing cards in the tea shop.  A tin roof means that when the rains come, the fire stays lit and the baby stays healthy”

Lakshmi grows cucumbers to sell and dreams of her tin roof.  But her stepfather continually gambles away what little they have and when he looks at the cucumbers he sees cigarettes and rice beer, a new vest for himself.  After he has gambled away everything they have he tells Lakshmi that she must go to the city and earn her keep as a maid.    The next morning he takes her to a shop in the city and sells her for 800 rupees.  That is roughly $15 US.

Lakshmi has no idea and thinks she is going to live in a glamorous house where she will work hard for a rich woman and send home money to her family.  Instead she is smuggled into India and sold again to a brothel owner for 10,000 rupees.  After she refuses to do what Mumtaz (the brothel owner) is requesting, she is locked up in a room, beaten with a leather strap until there is no part of her unmarked by the strap and starved for 5 days.  Then Mumtaz sends her some tea.  Lakshmi drinks the tea and begins to feel funny. She is seeing double and can’t get her arms and legs to work. 

 “In the days that follow, many men come to my room.  They crush my bones with their weight.  They split me open.  Then they disappear.  I decide to think it is all a nightmare.  Because if what is happening is real, it is unbearable.”

She is eventually let out of her locked up room and told that she can go home once she has earned enough to pay Mumtaz back.  One day she overhears a customer talking and learns that they pay only 30 rupees for her each time, which is about the same price as a bottle of coke.  And which Lakshmi has never even tasted.  

I won’t tell you how the story ends.  My hope is that you would read this book and give yourself an understanding of what life is like for these girls.  Sold is written in free verse and is a very quick read. 

Authors Note:  Each year nearly 12,000 Nepali girls are sold by their families into a life of sexual slavery in the brothels of India.  Worldwide, the US State Department estimates that nearly half a million children are trafficked into the sex trade annually.