This post contains disturbing details about child trafficking. Please read with discretion. Please also realize we are held accountable for what we know. I hope we are all moved to action as we remember this story.
There she was. A little eight year old girl, the same age as many of the girls in the home that month, crying on the side of the street as she gripped the waist of her Madam. An older man on a motorcycle, 60 or so, was smiling down at her. The smile was almost too sweet, like sour grapes dripping with honey.
He gently stroked her hair, “It’s okay sweetie, you did a good job. The first time’s the hardest. It’ll stop hurting soon.” The Madam threw her head back to chuckle as if to say, “Oh little girl, stop your crying, you’re being ridiculous. This is normal here.” I’ll let you fill in the details of the encounter that caused this conversation.
I remember walking by, overhearing that conversation, and looking back. What could we do? We were a group of seven young women, potentially in danger ourselves, with no way to get her out of that situation. Even if we somehow got her to a vehicle and somehow took her back to the safe house, we’d expose the location of dozens of children who were rescued from danger. I remember somberly taking out my Canon point-and-shoot and zooming in for this image.
I didn’t know what else to do.
I never wanted to forget this moment. I never wanted anyone else to forget this moment. It was the most grotesque thing I have ever witnessed.
Child trafficking, specifically in the arenas of sex and labor, is all too common. The story above is one of millions. LOVE146, an organization dedicated to fighting child trafficking and located in Connecticut, shares this stat:
AT ANY GIVEN MOMENT, AN ESTIMATED 40.3 MILLION PEOPLE ARE BEING VICTIMIZED IN SITUATIONS OF TRAFFICKING AND EXPLOITATION WORLDWIDE. 25% OF THESE ARE CHILDREN.
THAT MEANS 10 MILLION CHILDREN ARE BEING ACTIVELY VICTIMIZED AS YOU READ THIS BLOG.
Being victimized and trafficked is rarely the first thing to go wrong in a child’s life. There are signs. There are vulnerabilities. Whether it’s abuse, neglect, financial need, family trauma, or more, there are real facts and figures and algorithms that help us figure out “who is in danger here?”
That’s where Remember Nhu comes in.
“We are a non-profit committed to ending child sex trafficking through prevention. We identify those who are at risk of falling prep to the sex trade and provide them with a home in which their physical, educational, emotional, and spiritual needs are met. By creating a supportive environment for each of these children, we are ensuring a childhood free from sex slavery, and also dramatically lowering their risk of joining the sex trade later in life.”
They have 109 homes in 16 countries and have helped thousands of children.
We got to be a part of it firsthand.
Our month there was filled with helping build some infrastructure around holiday celebration, provide extra hands needed for projects around the property, and some construction work to build another building for a home for boys. But we also got to spend time learning about the situation in Thailand (and the entire world) and being spurred on to never stop doing something about it.
It can be really dark to see some of those things happen before your eyes. The man on the motorbike stroking the crying little girls hair is an image that will forever be burned in my brain. In those moments it’s hard to imagine a loving Father. But it’s not hard at Remember Nhu.
The night after we came back from the Red Light District, we were going to sleep, and we saw all our little girls snug in their beds. Here’s the deal: they’re not told what they are rescued from. The girls in this prevention home were not yet assaulted or violated. They may have been sold, but their innocence was not yet taken. They are obviously too young to be let in on the details, so they are just happy.
They have no idea what they have been rescued from.
They have no idea where they were going to end up.
The youngest? One. Year. Old.
She’ll never know what her story could have turned out like, and that’s good. Her innocence is preserved and she’ll know from the very beginning that she is worthy of being safe and protected.
I want to be very careful about using a very real and evil situation and relating it to someone like you or me. These girls are not a metaphor. They are flesh and blood and soul and spirit and learning about all this was not for the purpose of a clever blog post.
But I was also struck, sitting there that night, girls and snug in their beds, about the reality of some of our stories.
I was on a mission trip with many people that grew up un church, including myself. We didn’t have a “big, crazy testimony” and felt like second class citizens compared to the “God saved me out of addiction and death” type testimonies.
I sat there and thought, ”No, no, no, we all have the same story. These girls have the same story as the older women in the bars who were rescued as adults. They were all rescued, it was just earlier in the timeline.”
We too were rescued from the same things. Without Jesus, we would have been in the same cycles of sin and death. Our intervention just happened earlier in the timeline.
A rescue is a rescue. And a loving father never gives up on His kids.
How is there a loving God in a world of child sex trafficking? I’m going to be honest, sometimes it’s hard to see. But sometimes you sit in places like Remember Nhu and you get a glimpse.
There is rescue.
There is redemption.
There are people stepping up.
There are people doing something so that there are more girls snug in their beds and fewer girls crying on street corners as someone strokes their hair.
How is a loving Father present in the mess of this world?
THROUGH US.
He present in our stories, no matter where in the timeline we were rescued. But often, the rescue comes through His people, His hands and feet, choosing to stop looking away and choosing to step into action.
Now you know. What’s your next move gonna be? I have three ideas.
TO LEARN MORE ABOUT EFFORTS TO COMBAT CHILD SEX TRAFFICKING AND HOW YOU CAN GET INVOLVED, CHECK OUT:
IF YOU’RE BETWEEN THE AGES OF 18-35, CHECK OUT THE WORLD RACE AND GO JOIN IN THE STORY OF REDEMPTION GOD IS WRITING AROUND THE WORLD.
I’m down. Send me to the World Race site.
IF YOU WANT TO GIVE, AND YOUR HEART IS SPECIFICALLY FOR CHILD TRAFFICKING, GO BACK UP TO THE LINKS ABOVE.
If, however, you’re moved to help me continue in ministry with Adventures in Missions, telling stories from around the world and mobilizing a generation to action to DO something about things like child trafficking, please consider becoming a monthly financial partner. I am still in need of $800 more a month total coming in, and I can’t do this without you. Donate here.
