Saturday, 18th October, marked Anti-Slavery Day. DAVID ADAMS reports on how one Christian organisation, SIM, is making a difference in India…
Physically and emotionally abused by her father, 17-year-old Indian girl Meenu* didn’t hesitate when a man from the city took a special interest and promised to marry her.
But the excitement of marriage was short-lived and Meenu found herself locked into a tiny room and abused by the man. She managed to escape after three months and found shelter with a kindly couple who contacted police and Meenu’s abuser eventually faced justice.
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NEW HOPE: Girls in a Redlight-Greenlight class in India “Some of the girls that have come to us have been beaten with metal rods or they haven’t had much dental or eye care and generally their bodies are really beaten down. So we have a lot of medical care we have to early on when the girls first come.”– Roger Seth, who manages project Redlight-Greenlight for SIMAid |
Now 18, Meenu lives at Christian mission organisation SIM’s Beauty for Ashes home for at risk women in India and there has met other women who have also been victims of abuse, including trafficking and domestic abuse.
Her story is just one of the many encountered by those who work at the Beauty for Ashes restoration home, a refuge for women aged 18 and over which aims to support and equip the young women to make positive changes in their lives through community involvement and peer counseling as well as helping the girls to finalise their education and move into employment.
Run by the aid and development arm of SIM, SIMAid, under the umbrella of its ‘Girls off the Streets’ project, the Beauty for Ashes initiative sits alongside a “sister” project, Redlight-Greenlight. Since opening in an undisclosed city in India in January 2012, it has served as a “first stop” shelter for girls aged 12 to 17 who have been rescued from situations involving sex trafficking and sexual abuse.
Roger Seth, who manages project Redlight-Greenlight for SIMAid, told radio station HOPE 103.2 in September that the girls – who are usually 14 or 15 years-old – are brought to the home by local police after being rescued from brothels or other circumstances involving exploitation. He says they usually experience a range of trauma-related symptoms when they first arrive at the home, including having trouble sleeping or other health needs.
“Some of the girls that have come to us have been beaten with metal rods or they haven’t had much dental or eye care and generally their bodies are really beaten down. So we have a lot of medical care we have to rely on when the girls first come.”
Mr Seth says while poverty is a factor in helping to push girls into sex slavery, it was common for a “Romeo-figure” to play a role in enticing them away from their family, particularly in situations where girls have already been abused within their families.
“(H)e convinces her to run away together to the big city, but soon after she leaves, he’ll often rape her so that she feel too ashamed to go back and then pass her from middle man to middle man until she ends up in our city or some other large city in a brothel being forced to sleep with men 10 to 12 times a day.”
While the focus of the Girls off the Streets project has largely been India and Bangladesh, SIM internationally are now looking at expanding the project to some of the other more than 65 countries where SIM missionaries are already working.
Bob Cole, deputy director of operations at SIM Australia, says this could include expanding the program to aid children and youths caught up in the sex slave industry to places like Africa “where the slave trade is sadly alive and well”.
He says the mission to rescue girls and boys fits well with SIM’s mandate to reach out with the Gospel to the marginalized and the unreached.
“We consider, when you think of the number of young girls, in particular, and, of course, young boys caught up in the sex trade, they’re a very marginalized, unreached people group.”
While reliable statistics can be hard to come by, in India alone SIM says that every day around 200 girls in India enter into prostitution, around 80 per cent of them against their will.
“It’s a very well orchestrated industry,” says Mr Cole, noting that at a global level, the money generated by sex trafficking is on a par with that of illegal arms dealing and drug trafficking. “And it’s motivated by greed, ultimately…It’s an industry that generates money for someone.”
The organisation – which Mr Cole says takes a “boots on the ground” type of approach to the issue – are currently trying to raise greater awareness of the issue and greater support for the many initiatives already going on to tackle the issue of sex slavery.
While reliable statistics can be hard to come by, in India alone SIM says that every day around 200 girls in India enter into prostitution, around 80 per cent of them against their will. |
Mr Cole says there is a “spiritual element” to the issue of sex slavery and slavery in general that leads people to believe others have less value that therefore justifying them being used as slaves. He says that while the caste system in India may play a role in the prevalence of the sex trade, it was also of concern in countries like Thailand which don’t operate under such a strict caste system. “I think it somehow transcends culture,” he says.
Mr Cole says that while only around 70 girls have passed through the Redlight Greenlight home since it was opened, the “complexity of the emotional state of these girls means that we’re limited in how many we can actually care for.”
“The requirement of one-to-one care is so intense…I don’t think we could even begin to imagine the emotional torment that many of them are going through and how much counseling, support, love and attention they need…The value and the quality of the care is utmost in our minds.”
While some of the rescued girls can be re-united with their families after they are rescued from sex slavery situations – particularly if they were kidnapped – others, such as those who may have been sold into slavery by their families or who remain outcast by their families – require ongoing support – a fact which was a key consideration in the establishment of the Beauty for Ashes home following the earlier foundation of the Redlight Greenlight property.
Mr Cole says that while the girls and women who attend the homes are not subjected to nightly Bible studies or evangelistic crusades, the fact people care for them “opens up a very natural pathway to express, as a believer, why we have compassion (for them)”.
“That in itself makes people ask questions…So there is a very natural way in which we’re able to express our faith, share our faith. We make no secret, of course, of the fact we are believers because we also want that that to be known…that we care because we follow Jesus…”
“Our role is to provide the shelter, to provide the pathway to healing through counseling, a loving and caring environment…legal advice and support and in that way fulfilling Christ’s call to care for the widows and orphans.”
SIM Australia has a range of resources for both individuals and churches to help raise awareness of the issue of sexual slavery. For more, see www.sim.org.au/girls.
* Meenu’s name has been changed.
Correction: An error of omission in the first version of this article had Mr Cole saying the girls and women who attend the homes are subjected to nightly Bible studies or evangelistic crusades. It has been corrected to read that they are not.
