SPEAK UP

"I Can Not Be Defeated" - The Struggle for Hope in Rural Bangladesh

Here is the text of a letter, some personal details edited for privacy, from a girl we are sponsoring to stay in school in rural Bangladesh.  There are thousands more like her needing help - that's why we are building the Girls Education Program. 

Some of her language is profound but a bit flowery, a reflection of some of her education spent memorizing eloquent passages in English, some of which she doesn't fully understand.  But the gist of her message is crystal clear - she needs help to pursue her dream. 

Dear Sponsor,

I am 17 years old, and I read in Class 13.  My college name is Kumira Mohila College.  My subject is sociology.  I want to be a professor.  But my parents are very poor.  Their financial condition is not well enough.  My father is a farmer and mother is an illiterate woman.  She does all the house hold works with her own hands.  My father earn a little amount money.  But it is not enough for my family.  My father is a landless farmer who used to work on other people's land.  My parents are illiterate.  So they do not have any knowledge of science and health and nutrition and education.

Pimps in Dhaka - We're Coming For You

It's beyond disgusting when grown men approach me on the street and offer me minor girls for sex.  It's happened in many Asian cities - in Bangkok, Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Hong Kong and Mumbai, among others - and now in Dhaka.  Last week I was in Dhaka for a few days, continuing with some meetings to lay the groundwork for our office there, and walking out of a hotel I was approached by a 40-something man who asked me if I needed anything.  I knew instantly what he was offering. 

Serving the Brothel Girls - What Could be Better?

I can't think of anything better than what my friends with Light Bangladesh and others like them do: build relationships with sex workers through humble service, provide a safe home for their daughters to grow up and get and education, and empower brothel girls to live lives free from forced prostitution as a minor.  There is little in this world more disturbing than girls being raped for profit, and nothing more beautiful than seeing girls-at-risk living lives of freedom.  Girls who were destined for the hell of being a sex worker are growing and thriving and becoming young women with a future - what could be better than that?

I came to Bangladesh about three weeks ago, the start of a 4 month stretch where I will be looking for opportunities for Speak Up to have an office here.  My time has been spent in Khulna, the third largest city in the country and capital of a southwestern district of the same name.  I've done a lot in these three weeks - met the leading politicians and bureaucrats of the region, visited a bunch of NGO's and schools and orphanages, connected with tons of people intrigued with an American roaming the streets - and there is so much good work that we could be doing here.  But nothing moves me more

Baniashanta: One of the Worst Places on Earth

AT OUR MAY 7TH BENEFIT FUNDRAISER IN PASADENA, CALIFORNIA, I WILL BE SPEAKING ABOUT OUR PLANS TO WORK IN BANGLADESH ON ISSUES OF CHILD PROSTITUTION AND SEX TRAFFICKING.  HERE IS A REPRINT OF AN EARLIER ARTICLE ABOUT THESE ISSUES. 

BANIASHANTA. Some places are almost too sad for words, and the Banishanta brothel area in southwestern Bangladesh is one of those terrible places.  Situated on the muddy banks of the River Posur near Mongla, Bangladesh's busiest seaport, the brothel is a row of shacks which house at least 200 Bangladeshi women and the children born to them in prostitution.  These women, and likely many young girls, sell their services to dockworkers, sailors and hordes of other men who stream to Banishanta for sex on the cheap.  In the most densely populated and one of the poorest countries on earth, this is what semi-legalized prostitution has come to: scores of young women living in meager shacks on a polluted riverbank, reduced to selling themselves day and night for a few dollars to a never-ending stream of lustful men.  Sadly, Banishanta is not the only place like this on earth.  But in an age where life is cheap and sex is a commodity, Banishanta, and places like it, are the inevitable result.  

 THE MUDDY SHACKS OF THE BANIASHANTA BROTHEL

In December I visited Bangladesh on an exploratory trip for Speak Up to connect with a group of organizations who are playing a part in bringing justice to the most vulnerable and exploited people in the country, particularly girls born into brothels or trafficked into prostitution. 

Three Million Sex Workers?

I've received several emails and fundraising pleas and prayer letter updates over the years that refer to an estimated three million prostitutes in Thailand.  For two significant reasons, I plead for anyone involved with these issues to be careful with the use of this dubious, unhelpful statistic.

First of all, it is not helpful to describe someone working in the sex industry as a prostitute, to reduce your description of them to merely this role in life.  Though it is common to refer to someone by their job, I don't think we should do so when people are reduced to working in the sex industry.  For most women in such work (yes, I know there are men and boys involved, but females make up the vast majority), this is not a profession chosen freely or willingly but one made under force or economic duress or because of a lack of other options.  To reduce someone to an epithet is unfair and undemeaning.  I think it is more helpful to use a term such as 'sex-worker' and be careful to be as hopeful and visionary and positive as possible when talking about this work.  I'm not asking people to be pollyanhish about this.  I just think that mature people can treat people caught in difficult circumstances with respect, and the term 'prostitute' to me is inherently degrading and ugly.  We can do better. 

The Cowards of Nana

A few months ago I worked with a local NGO and the Thai police to help remove a minor girl from a local sex club where she danced nude to sell herself to foreign sex customers.  On Saturday I returned to that sad location to check if there were any more minors being prostituted.  I immediately noticed a young woman dancing half-heartedly and barely showing a weak smile.  I asked her to come talk with me, and learned that she was 21 years old and had been working in the club for a month and 10 days, figures she repeated several times to me, clearly showing that she didn't really want to be there.  "Ying" is from Isaan, the poorest part of rural Thailand, and at the recommendation of a friend had come to Bangkok to dance and strip and sell herself since she had no better job.  So she performs 6-7 nights a week, humiliating herself by dancing nude in front of a crowd, often being sold to foreign men for the night.  It’s a brutal, destructive way to make a living.

Ying and I could barely communicate in our broken Thai-English, but I told her that I could help her leave the bar and that I had friends who employ women who want to get out of working in bars and clubs.  I might not be the most convincing undercover sex tourist, so when it became obvious to Ying’s pimp/mamasan that Ying was not making a sale with me she was forced to return to dancing.  A few minutes later, an American man at the bar had Ying come over and sit next to him, and judging by his aggressive pawing at her he was obviously not there for Ying’s good. After a few minutes, I had the mamasan bring Ying over to me again, and Ying told me that she didn’t like that man, didn’t want to go out with him, but knew that he had just paid the bar-fine to take her back to his hotel for the night.

Ying went upstairs in the club to change clothes before leaving with the man, so I went to talk to him.  After a moment of small talk he was caught off guard when I said that the real reason I was talking to him was because I knew the girl he had just purchased and that she did not want to go out with him.  He was confused, and I explained my conversation with Ying. Then he got offended, saying that I was making assumptions, jumping to conclusions, or didn’t understand what was going on. I assured him that I did understand, and that I had just talked to Ying and that she didn’t want to go with him.  He became upset, and went to talk to the mamasan to ensure his sale.  I tried to appeal to his sense of decency, telling him that to be kind and respectful he should not force a young woman to go have sex with him if she really didn’t want to go. In the back of my mind I realized how strange it was to try to appeal to a sex tourist’s sense of sexual mores and decency, but I tried nonetheless - to no avail.  He wanted his sex on demand, and didn’t want Ying’s reluctance to get in the way of his pleasure. He kept on pushing for the sale. 

By this time, Ying had returned and was getting upset.  The mamasan started yelling at her, and I realized that Ying’s safety and/or job was now at risk since I had thrust myself into this situation.  The mamasan was mad, thinking that a sale was at risk; the man was angry that his sex victim for the night might not come along (she was actually one of two women he had purchased – at first he wondered aloud to me if Ying didn’t want to come with him because the other girl in his proposed threesome was, he said, a lesbian); and I was angry that such an exploitative situation existed at all.  In retrospect I should have offered to pay Ying’s bar fine and taken her to a friend’s home for the night, but I didn’t think of that right then.  Ying, likely worried about her job, reassured me and the mamasan and the man that she was happy to go with him.  Her emerging tears said otherwise, but she had little choice. So off she went with the brazen sex tourist whose sexual desires were more important to him than treating a young woman with dignity.  They walked away to his hotel, another American man joining the steady stream of western sex tourists sporting the caddish, self-satisfied smile of men so bereft of honor that they travel to Thailand to force themselves on girls young enough to be their daughter. 

(A brief aside.  The bar where this happened is not a good place for men to be on their own.  Every time I go there it is with a partner, with a specific mission in mind, or with the accountability of a team of people who know that I am there.  No man is immune from the visual bombardment that assaults the senses in these types of clubs, and they are not great places to hang out.  I have a friend who has worked on these issues who, first thing upon meeting a bar girl, shows her a picture of his wife and children, assuring himself that he will treat her as a daughter and not let his mind go to darker places.  I have friends who pray regularly for the protection of men who work in these dark areas.  And not all men should be there at all, regardless of their best motivations.  But the fact is also that certain places only allow certain access, and being a white, western man has allowed me to investigate brothels in India and Thailand and beyond.  But we have to be careful and accountable.)   

I understand that these issues are, at one level, quite complex.  Poverty and culture, economics and religion, combine to create a conflicted stew of opinions on sex tourism in Nana, Patpong and other red-light areas which cater to western men in Thailand.  What’s probably most needed are jobs and education for women so they don’t have to enter prostitution in the first place.  It’s a situation that requires more than mere moralizing – it’s a situation needing talented and creative people who work for real solutions.

But it is still a moral issue, one that demands a clear accounting of right and wrong.  And it’s a matter of honor and dignity and choice.  Men can choose to treat women with respect, and at the bare minimum not pay for sex.  All the lame excuses (“boys will be boys”) and dishonest rationalizations (“prostitution is the world’s oldest profession and will always be with us”) and outright lies (“I’m actually helping her since she needs the work and money”) cannot hide the fact that men who buy women are lazy, selfish cowards.  Where we should work to woo and court a woman to date and marry, we instead take the lazy man’s route of using our money to get what we want cheaply and easily.  Where we should use our strength to honor and uphold the dignity of women, we instead use our power to pursue our own temporary pleasure, the fantasy of orgasm on demand with no commitment or attachment.  And where we should use our power to fight the evil and injustice that consume our world, we instead hide behind lies and half-truths and meekly defer tackling the pressing issues of our day, focusing instead on our narrow, petty desires.  I don’t know if there is a better definition for cowardice than buying and exploiting young women rather than using your power for broader good in the world. 

Many sex tourists are sympathetic in their own right, perhaps suffering their own shame and brokenness that does demand a loving response, and I am thankful for those people who are trying to reach out to the customers who deserve more than just our anger.  Those agents of mercy are better men than me.   But the extension of mercy to commercial sex customers should not make cloudy our understanding of certain moral truth: it is a cowardly and morally repugnant thing to buy a vulnerable woman for sex, and the men who do so are not acting like men at all.  They have made their choices, and their actions deserve our deepest indignation.  Men can choose something better than their basest, primal instincts; it is animals that cannot. 

In a world of deep need and desperation, with so many places begging for men to stand up and be men, our world often celebrates and empowers men who act like animals.  On Saturday night, I saw another example of this, and did my meager best to intervene.  I passed Ying’s information on to a female friend who I hope can help Ying get out of the bar.  It would be great to use some of my money to provide her a real job, and I dream of running a business where I could hire thousands of young women to empower them and allow them to escape or avoid a life of prostitution.  I don’t know where all this will lead.  But I do know that as I struggle to be a man of integrity and courage, to be a man who serves the world rather than feeds his own desires, it is both morally painful and joyfully inspiring to try to help one young woman in need. 

We need men and women of courage and conviction in Nana and Patpong and Soi Cowboy and in red-light districts all across Thailand and Asia and beyond.  God knows there are enough cowards. 

CNN - Sex Industry in the Philippines

A number of interesting stories about exploitation of girls and women in the global sex industry have come out in the past few weeks. 

 

Here is an interesting story on CNN today about exploitation in the sex industry in the Philippines.  The dynamics there in the Philippines are quite similar to those faced by women here in Thailand - an international sex industry, women forced by economic and family pressures to sell themselves in prostitution, an entire bar-sex show-tourism industry built on the sexual exploitation of a country's young women.    

Slaying Monsters

"Slavery is one of those monsters of darkness to whom the light of truth is death."

Frederick Douglass (c.1818-1895)

Pray With Your Legs

"If slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong."

Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865)

 

 

 

 

“I prayed for twenty years but received no answer until I prayed with my legs.”

Frederick Douglass (c. 1818-1895)

 

 

 

 

Since human trafficking and various forms of modern slavery have become hot cultural issues over the past 10 to 15 years, I've heard hundreds of people talk about their heart for these issues.  It certainly is heart-breaking to hear of the millions of people - some say up to 27 million - caught in slavery today.  President Lincoln hits it right on - if this isn't wrong, what is? 

Douglass' quote has always challenged and inspired me.  Of the many people that I hear talk about modern slavery, considerably fewer are actually doing something about it.  I wonder how much worse it really is to be a modern slaveowner or human trafficker as opposed to being someone who knows about these evils and sits idly by doing nothing about it.  Of course it's a terrible evil to intentionally exploit people as slaves.  But why is it acceptable to know about this evil and do nothing about it? 

I know that slavery isn't the only issue, and there are valid reasons for people to be in "normal" jobs, some of which financially allow various NGO's and ministries and entrepreneurs to do their thing.  But I'm not necessarily talking about making the fight against slavery your career, or having to be overseas in the darkest brothels or slave mines, or something dramatic like that.  I'm talking about taking action.  Doing something creative to raise huge money for the fight.  Speaking to your place of worship to educate and mobilize people.  Monitoring your elected representatives and leaders as they work on these issues.  Reaching out to women enslaved in prostitution; visiting an anti-slavery organization and learning what you can do; giving until it really costs you something, until it hurts.  Being truly engaged in the issue.  

We've got to be clear about what's going on in the world today.  At any one moment, there are hundreds of thousands of minor girls being held in forced prostitution, nothing less than rape for sale.  At the very instant you read these words, Vietnamese girls in Cambodia are being raped in brothels in Phnom Penh and Siem Reap.  Nepali girls trafficked to India are being raped in brothels in Kolkata and Mumbai and Delhi.  It is happening this very second.  Stop and really think about that for a moment - it's happening as you read these words.  So many people know about this.  Yet so few are outraged to the point they will actually do something about it.

So many great organizations could use your prayer and financial support as they fight modern slavery.  My friends with Freedom Firm in central India; my friends with Justice and Care International in India; my friends with IJM in Cambodia and India and the Philippines; so many other organizations that I've met across Asia; my friends with Abolish Slavery and ECPAT and CAST LA; and me and the Speak Up team as we try to get things rolling here in Thailand.

But this movement needs more than prayers and donors.  It needs people of courage and conviction who will literally change their lives - lay down their lives - to serve the poor and the exploited.  In the words of Frederick Douglass, we need people who will pray not only in their heart and mind but with their legs, boldly answering the call to physically do something to fight slavery and exploitation.  You may not know where to start.  You may think that your money and prayers are the only thing you have to give.  But there is more.  Pick a favorite organization, call them up, and find some tangible ways you can be a modern abolitionist. 

Please take some concrete action to fight slavery today. 

Put your convictions into action. 

Pray with your legs.

Abolition!!

“So enormous, so dreadful, so irremediable did the Trade's wickedness appear that my own mind was completely made up for Abolition.  Let the consequences be what they would, I from this time determined that I would never rest until I had effected its abolition.” 

William Wilberforce (1759-1833)

These are Wilberforce's classic words as he dedicated his life to the abolition of slavery.  If you ever want to read a great biography, read anything about Wilberforce.  He was a humble, visionary, unrelenting man.  How I want to be gripped by that kind of fire and conviction, the stuff that gives a man towering moral authority.