Deeper than sorrow
Over the last month I have been evaluating the AIDS prevention program of another organization. It is fascinating to go into another organization and compare its programs to other programs I've seen, mostly our own. What are they doing well? What is ground breaking? What needs improvement? How can they better achieve their vision?
It is also heart breaking. This organization works with very vulnerable populations - refugees, commercial sex workers (prostitutes) and the communities from which they come.
Last week I visited a project across the street from a brothel in which 250 women work. The first group I seen was 20 first-year sex workers. They were watching a video on reproductive health when I came in and I didn't realize right away they were sex workers because they looked like my own adolescent groups in Dhaka, some were as young as 12! After the video I sat with them. The ones who would speak told me their stories.
A 15 year old looked me straight in the eye and told me she was working to support her mother. She had no father, and there was no money for her dowry. If she worked as a house maid (the other option for destitute girls) the men of that house would take advantage of her anyways, and by working here she could support her mother, and send her 2 brothers to school.
Another girl said she was an orphan. There was no one in the world who would take her in and care of her. Working here she would save for a house, so that she can live a better life in the future.
Most of the girls would not say anything averting their eyes in shame of what life had brought them to. The staff later told me that most of the girls had been trafficked- betrayed by men who had brought them here after marrying them in the village, or sold by parents who could not pay back a loan, much less pay the dowry it takes to marry off a daughter.
I have read about such this many times before, as this situation is the same all over Asia, and in other countries where girls are property and burdens to their families. Still, seeing it face to face was unbearable. It brings home the fact that the price of a human being is cheaper than it has ever been in history. Although slavery was legally abolished 200 years ago it is still a business alive and thriving in many parts of the world.
As I asked them about the education project I was evaluating a madam from next door came over. Clients were waiting for the girls, I had better finish my questions quickly.
Another group I visited was of women who had been in sex work for 15-20 years. The women learn about hygiene, HIV&AIDS and using condoms. They learn about human rights and how to use the law for their own benefit. They told me the project had made them clever. They also learn literacy, raising children and dreaming. The project teaches them handicrafts and provides a market for the products. They begin to see the possibility of life outside a brothel, doing "good" work. They spoke of their children and the hopes they would fulfill. At the same time, I was made aware that these women were caught in and perpetuating the cycle of sex work. As the older women get fewer clients, each woman in turn had a girl or two indentured to them, and could not escape the brothel till she had paid back the loan with which she had bought the girls.
For more information on trafficking visit www.stopthetraffik.org. March 25th is International Freedom Day, the 200th anniversary of the abolition of the transatlantic slave trade and a day to remember the thousands around the world who are still trafficked.
The final group I visited was one in a village from which 3-4 sex workers had come from. By raising awareness about trafficking, AIDS and building alternative livelihoods at the village level they hope to keep women from the brothels in town.
Later, as I talked with my colleague, heavy with the terrible truths I had seen, she reminded me that my regular work also keeps girls out of the brothel. By teaching adolescents and their families about health, education, rights and livelihoods I hope they become clever before such a terrible fate catches them.
Accept my apologies for the long post with no pictures, but the girls are terrified their families will see them and realize they are sex workers, so I wasn't allowed to take photos.
It is also heart breaking. This organization works with very vulnerable populations - refugees, commercial sex workers (prostitutes) and the communities from which they come.
Last week I visited a project across the street from a brothel in which 250 women work. The first group I seen was 20 first-year sex workers. They were watching a video on reproductive health when I came in and I didn't realize right away they were sex workers because they looked like my own adolescent groups in Dhaka, some were as young as 12! After the video I sat with them. The ones who would speak told me their stories.
A 15 year old looked me straight in the eye and told me she was working to support her mother. She had no father, and there was no money for her dowry. If she worked as a house maid (the other option for destitute girls) the men of that house would take advantage of her anyways, and by working here she could support her mother, and send her 2 brothers to school.
Another girl said she was an orphan. There was no one in the world who would take her in and care of her. Working here she would save for a house, so that she can live a better life in the future.
Most of the girls would not say anything averting their eyes in shame of what life had brought them to. The staff later told me that most of the girls had been trafficked- betrayed by men who had brought them here after marrying them in the village, or sold by parents who could not pay back a loan, much less pay the dowry it takes to marry off a daughter.
I have read about such this many times before, as this situation is the same all over Asia, and in other countries where girls are property and burdens to their families. Still, seeing it face to face was unbearable. It brings home the fact that the price of a human being is cheaper than it has ever been in history. Although slavery was legally abolished 200 years ago it is still a business alive and thriving in many parts of the world.
As I asked them about the education project I was evaluating a madam from next door came over. Clients were waiting for the girls, I had better finish my questions quickly.
Another group I visited was of women who had been in sex work for 15-20 years. The women learn about hygiene, HIV&AIDS and using condoms. They learn about human rights and how to use the law for their own benefit. They told me the project had made them clever. They also learn literacy, raising children and dreaming. The project teaches them handicrafts and provides a market for the products. They begin to see the possibility of life outside a brothel, doing "good" work. They spoke of their children and the hopes they would fulfill. At the same time, I was made aware that these women were caught in and perpetuating the cycle of sex work. As the older women get fewer clients, each woman in turn had a girl or two indentured to them, and could not escape the brothel till she had paid back the loan with which she had bought the girls.
For more information on trafficking visit www.stopthetraffik.org. March 25th is International Freedom Day, the 200th anniversary of the abolition of the transatlantic slave trade and a day to remember the thousands around the world who are still trafficked.
The final group I visited was one in a village from which 3-4 sex workers had come from. By raising awareness about trafficking, AIDS and building alternative livelihoods at the village level they hope to keep women from the brothels in town.
Later, as I talked with my colleague, heavy with the terrible truths I had seen, she reminded me that my regular work also keeps girls out of the brothel. By teaching adolescents and their families about health, education, rights and livelihoods I hope they become clever before such a terrible fate catches them.
Accept my apologies for the long post with no pictures, but the girls are terrified their families will see them and realize they are sex workers, so I wasn't allowed to take photos.
2 Comments:
Great post, Alana. I don't care about the pictures--you do such a good job of painting pictures with your words. What incredibly sad pictures. I'm thinking of those women as I watch the snow fall here in Toronto.
hi alana, i was re-reading "nectar in a sieve" this weekend, and i resonate with what you shared about the lives of these women. their suffering, socially and physically, is more than what i can imagine, nor bear. hope you are well. thanks for your email. i'm hanging in here, though i can't wait to leave kano.
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