Yesterday little E, my cousin Sarah and her husband, Andrew and I went to the Care Center again in the morning. Andrew played some cricket. Sarah and I played lots of soccer and then taught them 500 which the kids loved. Then we went home and then had some lunch. For the afternoon my parents watched the kids and Sarah and I headed out.
We took a 45 minute scooter ride outside of town and met up with 2 other friends. A Chai Country national worker and Joanne. We drove another 15 minutes then walked through a gully and finally made it to the Government Safe House for Trafficked Women. We had to sign in, then they unlocked the pad-locked gate and told us we were not walking in fast enough so we hurried. They then locked the gate back up from the outside. They do this so that the men looking for them cannot get in and hurt the women or take anyone. I thought, ‘What did I get myself into...? I’m now locked inside...What if they don't let us out...? What if one of guys show up looking for the girls and we are put in danger...? I have 2 small kids at home...!” I just had to get over those thoughts and think “I'm here to love so that’s what I’m going to do!”
Per usual here in Chai Country the staff questioned us as to why we were there. Why would we give up our time to come they asked? The government must be giving you money to come so give that money to us. We said, “No we don't work for the government” Then they were convinced we worked for an NGO and that we must have lots of grants and that we needed to give the money to the the girls. After 45 minutes of being questioned they finally let us in to see the girls.
We walked up a dark damp staircase that opened up to a big room. The floor of this room was not regular flooring but bars/grates that allows you to look down into the lower story of the home. The paint was peeling off the walls with dirt and grime in the corners. All the girls came running out to see us and at first I thought, “Wow, look at all the little girls they have that work here to help clean” (since people here tend to hire girls between the ages of 9-18 to do these types of jobs) Then my stomach began to hurt as I realized “These are not workers...these are the girls who were rescued!” They ran over to touch our feet (which is a sign of respect) and some hugged us. They pulled us into a side-room and we all sat on the floor and they wanted us to sing. We sang some "Jibberish"worship songs to TBMU and the girls knew every word (as our friend, Joanne has been going regularly to spend time with them) Then they asked our friend Joanne to pray. After that we taught the girls how to make the bracelets that Joanne is selling to help raise money for the home. Joanne sat and counseled one of the girls (about 21) who has 2 missing children and doesn’t know where they are. Then she worked on teaching some of the girls how to read Jibberish (the national language of Chai Country) 3 of the girls are from Nepal so they cannot read or write the Hindi script but will probably need to remain in India so need to learn it. These 3 girls from Nepal can’t be any older than16 and one looked about 13. Several of the girls did not know their age and it was embarrassing for them to share that with us. One girl has a 1 year old son living there with her and another is 6 months pregnant. Of the other young women several were also very young - three were 16, two were 17 and one was 18. A lot of the girls cannot go home because it was their own family members who sold them into the sex trade in the first place! It was so heart wrenching! It will take awhile for them to open up to us more as they are so scared of course. They are rescued out of the sex trade but are still locked in a jail-like place they cannot get out of since their cases are in court and they are under protection. Most of the girls will be married off by the government after their trials ... Hopefully we can find some of the good family’s who did not partake in the selling off of their family member and get some of the girls back to these good parents and/or family. We cannot take photos of them because of we need to keep them protected. I will write more next week after we go again and I find out more.
I have watched countless documentaries and have seen many photos but still didn’t understand the depth of the situation until I met these young girls. They will forever be in my heart!
The bracelets the girls made
This is a great documentary about the genocide against girls. You can also check out the website http://www.itsagirlmovie.com/
No comments:
Post a Comment