December 12, 2011
Inside the Fight for Freedom, Part II: The Girls of the Red Light Districts
Johanna Calfee
Hope. A word so hard to define for the ladies of Bangkok. For a girl who is forced to sell her bodies, often multiple times a day … what hope does she have? She is degraded, dehumanized, jeered and barked at on stage (some of our team actually witnessed this last night at Nana Plaza) and made to feel that she is nothing more than a soulless body, designed only for someone else’s pleasure. When you boil down what her existence looks like–hollow and haunted–it is hard to imagine what must keep her going, day after day, night after night.
Some find a measure of comfort through religious rituals, like the girl above who is praying and giving a drink offering to a Buddhist alter before going into work. However, for most of these enslaved girls, their greatest hope–apart from Christ–lies in their death. Only then will the pain of life as a sex slave be relieved.
But even in the face of despair, there is hope….tremendous hope. I’ve seen it in the 16 girls who now call Beginnings home. These girls who each glow bright with their own Resurrection story. They are the reason we do what we do–to see more like them, once abused, neglected and enslaved–come to freedom, a new life and yes, even to hope.
In the meantime, however, the challenge ahead is a huge one. Let these photos of just a few of the girls and women within this massive industry soak in. This is the heart of Freedom 4/24. This is also for whom we must fight.
***For the complete blog post including images, go to calfeesinthailand.wordpress.com
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