Eve Levy

Day 2 - Not an easy day. 

03/12/2019

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Where do I even begin?

I don’t know if I have the words yet. And I don’t know if I ever will. But I will try. 

I walked through the streets passing by the Nana Plaza this morning, taking in all the smiles of the passerbyers. Taking in all the noise, the chaos, and the seemingly normal hustle. Yes, it all looks and feels different to what I’m used to. It is a totally different culture and country. But overall things seemed ok. Sane. Fair. Even safe. But three hours later, when we walked out of our sex trafficking orientation and educational session, everything looked different. Now, as I walked down that same street, my eyes noticed things I did not see before. And what I saw made me feel nauseated to my very core. Smiles seemed fake, a facade to cover all the pain hiding under it. In this place the highest value is saving face. Appearance is everything. A fake and hollow facet of society. I now noticed the young girls walking with men that I would have thought to be their fathers or grandfathers, but now I understood this to  most likely be horribly tragic situations. Nothing around me seemed normal anymore. Nothing seemed healthy or sane. Nothing! I felt like I was in a world gone mad. The beautiful young women sitting on the steps or on high stools lining the sides of the streets, promiscuously dressed, looking desperately for work, their eyes did not dare to meet my own. And I just felt so powerless. Wishing I could help them. Wishing this was not the reality. How can this happen in our day and age?! In a world that is so forward thinking and advanced it is shocking to see such poverty that is so terrible that women have no choice but to sell themselves to survive, or as we learnt today, parents who sell their children into this hell to clear debt. It is unfathomable to think of a world like this. My heart cries. It reminded me of the lamentations we read on the saddest day of the year, the 9th of Av, where mothers are so starved, they have no choice but to eat their children to survive. It is always during this part of the lamentations that I shed my tears. For how is it possible for a mother to not protect their own child. It is only possible in a world gone mad, a terribly desperate situation. And even then...it is hard to even begin to fathom.

Today we went to a home called New Beginnings. It is a rescue center right in the middle of one of the largest sex and trafficking industry area’s in Thailand, referred to by our guide ‘the heart of darkness’. There, a righteous woman, by the name of Bonita, dedicates her life to fighting the corruption on the streets. She fights for each girl to have a chance of having a normal safe life. It is not an easy battle. She literally must go to the darkest places to reach these young women. And more often then not, the women are too far in, and they don’t know anything different or better. They do not even think they stand a chance for having a different life. They feel this is just their fate. Karma. And they succumb to it. It’s what their mothers had to do to survive. Its all they know. We met some of the young girls who were saved from this world of hell. They were so sweet, it was difficult to even imagine what they had been through.
This recovery home stand on two pillars: family and education. This home literally saves lives. It gives girls a fighting chance. Bonita proudly showed us pictures of the girls who went through this home and whom had gone on to graduating from high school and university. To her, every single girl is a whole world. She proudly bragged to us that none of these girls will ever have to have their daughters suffer in this way. They are now safe. It is nothing short of a miracle that these girls are able to turn their lives around after so much trauma. 

How much can I share here in a Facebook post? I usually like to share happy uplifting things. But this is important stuff.

We learnt about the poverty that is at the root of much of the issues, we learnt about the gender inequality, the sex tours, brothal arrangements, pimps, prostitution, domestic violence, pedophilia, debt bondage, infidelity, government corruption, child pornography, the “lady boys” transgender...

In the area we were in, on an average night over 10,000 girls are for sale on the streets, in the bars, in the clubs... In other areas the number is up to 50,000. Every day. The supply meets the demand. 
It is sickening. Shocking. Horrific. 

Today we caught a glimpse into a part of society that was void of values and holiness.