In 2008 I visited an organization in Bangkok Thailand which serves young women they can lure from the Sex/Bar Scene with an offer of a job making jewelry and unconditional love. Nightlight has become fairly well known now as a front line team battling against injustice and sexual abuse. While there, I had the opportunity to interview some girls who had been bartered into the business and to hear some of their story. These stories helped me to understand the culture and family life of many Southeast Asians. I converted the interview into a magazine article for NightLight - but God used the interview as another step to convert my heart to be more like his with a deep desire to see the church step up its efforts to rescue and restore these fragile young women. Following is the article;
------------------------------------------------------
Beads of Hope
Beads – brightly colored, multi-shaped, strung together by the hands of Asian women . Women who have been captive to the sex trade of Thailand – but are now set free to earn a living by a small upstart organization known as NightLight. Women who have been trashed – create beauty – by crafting jewelry that has been artistically designed.
The year 2007 has brought a high profile to issues of human trafficking, slavery and abuse of women. Amazing Grace, a movie about William Wilberforce and his persistent and untiring efforts to eradicate the slave trade from the British Empire drew nearly 5 million men, women and children to theaters around the world and created new levels of empathy for their fellow man. Books like Not For Sale and Good News About Injustice brought to light the abuse that many women and children suffer in the world at the hands of the strong, wealthy and powerful. Governments, churches and non-governmental agencies began working together as never before to find solutions to problems of slavery that today claim more than 1000 times the number of victims as it did in the 1800’s.
One tool included in the arsenal to free women from this bondage is surprisingly the bead. Beads, assembled by women who have been rescued from their imprisonment and provided employment through the art of jewelry making. Hands that have been defiled and abused are now free and creative. High quality bracelets, necklaces and earrings are now for sale through the internet and online catalogs. Revenues from the sale of these items now support the women and their children that were brave enough to tell their Mamasan, bar owners and pimps “NO MORE.” NightLight ministry provides light in the midst of pitch black darkness.
How this jewelry is designed, assembled and marketed would in itself be interesting reading. But the stories behind these women and the organizations that serve them are the ones that grip. If you are willing to put your heart at risk try to visualize yourself born into a peasant family living in Isan in Northeastern Thailand. This region is one of the poorest, primarily agricultural and subject to extremes of nature and drought. What if you were female, always a step below your brothers - - sometimes a huge step? What if your family existed in the midst of absolute poverty subsisting on minimal income and the food you could scratch out of the parched earth? What if your parents were beginning to age as a result of the rugged village life? It could have been that way.
Had this been your lot in life, who you are would have been significantly impacted by your culture. Your brother, or brothers, would receive great favor from your parents. He would represent the future for your family, you would not. Most likely, he would spend some time earning merit as a Monk, bringing honor to your parents, and insuring their life beyond, you would not. You, instead, would assume your rightful place to care for your aging parents. You would do this out of great gratitude, inborn in a culture which has significant reverence for parental structure and authority.
Half of the young girls in your village would abandon their village life to travel into the cities of Northern Thailand or even south to Bangkok. A “job broker” might visit your village and convince you and your parents that you will earn a good wage in the city and will be able to send home a sizable percentage of your income. You dream of the things you could buy, and believe that many of your friends are now living in luxury and pleasure. Your parents are paid seven thousand baht ($212 US)as a finder’s fee, but you are indentured to pay it back to the “broker” and send money home each payday. If you have children you leave them behind with your parents or a sister.
Soon, you find yourself doing jobs that the Southern Thailand girls are unwilling to perform, earning only enough for one bowl of noodle soup at the end of the day. You have nothing to send home. You are crushed in spirit, unable to speak the language, in a foreign land and foreign culture. Eventually, men come by with money – they are willing to purchase your body. Why not you ask? I will have money for food and maybe some to send home to mother and father. The cycle of sexual slavery begins – and continues until you have little self worth, not much money, and very possibly HIV/AIDS. You are only 15 years old.
Some girls are sold into the brothels by their parents, others tricked into employment that was not what they expected. Still, others voluntarily enter the trade having lost all hope and in desperation falling victim to evil men who will satisfy their own desires without a thought to how you are being broken. Yet the culture tells you, you must send money back home to support your parents. Oppression, injustice, abuse of power. Evil prowls like a lion, waiting to devour its prey – a young girl, or possibly a young boy. It is hard to break free. The darkness of life snuffs out hope like a candle extinguished by a gust of wind.
Yet, NightLight provides an alternative. Nightlight – provides light – in the middle of pitch black darkness. NightLight provides love, they provide hope in a Savior, they provide counseling, they provide spiritual nourishment, and they provide employment. Three years ago – NightLight was an idea that God had placed on the heart of Annie Dieselberg. Churches, including Perimeter Church in Duluth Georgia, began to support Annie’s vision and has helped to establish the NightLight ministry. Today 80 girls are employed in the jewelry business. 80 girls who no longer need to rely on selling their bodies, and too often their emotional soul, to men seeking to use them up.
NightLight produces beautiful and reasonably priced jewelry with many different shapes, colors and sizes of beads. It also produces beautiful and infinitely valued women – who are now able to earn a respectable living, make contributions to their society, and care for their families.
You can purchase this jewelry from NightLight and also support a very good cause by going online at
http://tradeasone.com/tradeasone/Do-justice-collection/NightLight-jewelry.html
What better way can you think of for the use of beads.
Tim Neet
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment