Turn The Lights Off.
First some statistics:
30 million-the amount of people enslaved in the world
2.8 million-the number of children a year trafficked into the sex trade
9-the average age of a sex worker
3 million-the number of sex slaves in India alone
80%-how many of the 30 million slaves are female
70%-how many of the 30 million slaves are in the sex industry
50%-how many of the 30 million slaves are children
In the simplest terms, Resc\You wants to turn the lights out. In some way, through empowering men and women, educating them, and rebuilding communities by turning off the lights in red light districts across the world. We’re starting in India.
Resc\you met in India, well actually New York City, in December of 2008. We bonded on a trip to India, traveling and meeting the wonderful people that inhabited the towns we visited. One common thread among us was that part of us was left in that country.
Resc\You was started because I want to help Bittu, a boy I met while visiting the shelter in Khidderpore. He has a smile that I will never forget and laughter that’s better than any song on the planet. We drew pictures together, he stole my camera and a big piece of my heart.
What bothered me about Bittu is that as I was leaving the shelter, so was he. I was returning to my flat across town and he was returning to a brothel. He played in the street littered with johns and decorated with girls awaiting them.
Resc\You began for the sex worker who offered me her child through the taxi window. I do not have children, but it’s a dream of mine. The opportunity for a great life is more likely with me in her eyes, than in her own. Hope has not been closed out from my life. The want to provide and care for a child is ingrained in a lot of women and you can see in her eyes that she wanted that too. To know that her baby girl was cared for, loved and safe was more important than keeping that child. Saying no to her was so painful; how long would it be before this girl was being forced to have sex?
Resc\You exists because I remember every face I looked into as the taxi rolled down the broken road through the red light district. Their skin reflecting the red glow of the lights in the stalls. Girls as young as 7 or 8, awaiting the men they would have to entertain. Women leaning against the walls, tired already.
Women should not have to be valued solely for their sexuality. The kids of the red light districts should not have to live in fear. Slavery affects everyone, you and me as well. It affects us because we know about it, we see it and we have the ability to do something about it.
Resc\You had to happen because we see a need and are willing to fill it. We have the talents, we have the ability; to whom much is given, much is expected. We do not take the burden we’ve been given lightly.
We’re all friends who met in India and going back to help them because we love them so much. We remember their laughs, smiles and the freedom they show when they dance. We want them to be able to feel that way everyday.
We want you to know the people we met in the districts as well, and you will as Resc\You progresses. You will know the facts that we know and together we will radically change the statistics. Actually, not just the statistics..the people behind those statistics.
-Amy Turner
Please click here to find out more about the partnership between Resc\You and Spendyourself
Proceeds from the Resc\You shirt will go directly toward funding a scholarship fund for the children of sex workers.
“Trafficking is essentially modern day slavery, and currently there are 27 million people in slavery.”
“The average age of entry for prostitution for girls and boys ranges from 11-14″
“Within the first 48 ho
I thought, “She is me. Well, sort of.”
The differences between us were obvious. She was ten years younger than I, Indian and dressed in a vibrant fuchsia dress, a gold ring in her nose; she was certainly a far cry from my pasty-white, plaid-shirted self of that day and definitely of the Abby who once wore Doc Martens and her hair to her waist. But there I was, in the middle of a tribal village in God- Knows-Where, India, sharing a wordless conversation with a girl so much like the Me of only a few years ago.
Nearly one year ago (gosh, it feels like only yesterday) I traveled to southeast India with Faceless International, a non-profit dedicated to promoting awareness and combating human trafficking. This particular day was spent visiting a small impoverished village hours from the closest city. It was here that many women and youth were at high risk of falling into trafficking because of the extremely limited, opportunities for education and employment. We were there to establish relationships, spread cheer and harmony. To help people know they were loved and valued as human beings.
The Faceless Team was ushered through the village by a small man beating a drum like an Indian Pied-Piper, beckoning us through the dusty streets. Women surrounded me, smiled and giggled, whispered greetings, “Namaste,” with their hands pressed together at their chests. The entire village danced and sang together to the rhythms our friend Kris’ guitar and that one little drum. Amidst this beautiful chaos, a small girl hid behind a doorway, watching all that was in front of her. I turned in her direction and for a moment our eyes met. She shrank behind the door for a moment and then reappeared. She smiled. I smiled in return, only to frighten her away once again.
The party turned to ceremony. We listened to Vijay, our project counterpart from St. Joseph’s Welfare Association, as he addressed us and the villagers. I tried to pay attention to his words despite the assault on all of my senses- food cooking, children laughing, colorful saris sweeping across a backdrop of shabby huts and dirt.
And then, I felt a timid, unsure touch on my shoulder. I turned and there she was, the same girl from moments before standing next to me with a hand extended. She opened her palm and offered a small green bean. I, of course, accepted the gift and whispered, “thank you,” with a smile. She smiled back, but her eyes were riddled with uncertainty and fear. She shrank away with no words and it was then I thought, “you are me.”
Once upon a time, I never would have dreamed I would be on a volunteer trip in India. As a teen, I suffered from debilitating shyness. Protected but encouraged by my parents, it took years for me to overcome my social anxieties . . . and now I was here in India to encourage and support strangers who spoke a language I didn’t understand with twenty-four teammates I had never met before a week prior. I was a world away (figuratively and geographically) from the girl I had once been.
The evils of this world prey upon the innocents, people who only want to improve their circumstances with honest work and pay. Girls who are forced into trafficking never enter that world of their own free will; they’re lured by the lies and the promise of a better life. For this young girl I met that day, becoming a young woman was a dangerous and uncertain life. I felt like I understood her in so many ways and yet I knew (and still recognize) that I have little idea of the challenges that stood before her then and now.
I watched that little girl throughout the day. She slowly edged towards our group of Americans and children playing games and snapping pictures together. She even jumped into a few frames; she didn’t smile at first, but by the end of the day, she grinned and held my hand as we walked through the streets. Her shell melted away during those short hours and though I will probably never see her again, I would like to think that maybe she is still learning and trying to share her heart with others and remaining safe from predators who might break her innocence.
With a simple twist of fate, I could easily have grown up in that small Indian village or into a Kolkota brothel. But I wasn’t. Though we seem so different and separated from our brothers and sisters who suffer lives of oppression, we are all connected. I share something with that young girl I met in India. I share something with the children who are brought up in the red light districts and the women forced into the sex trade. The threads of humanity bind us together and bridge the disparities that divide us. I hope when people give to Resc\You, they understand they’re investing in a life that is just like theirs, just as valuable, indeed distinctive, but so very much the same.
-Abby
Please click here to find out more about the partnership between Resc\You and Spendyourself.
“India is a source, destination, and transit country for men, women, and children trafficked for the purposes of forced labor and commercial sexual exploitation. Internal forced labor may constitute India’s largest trafficking problem; men, women, and children in debt bondage are forced to work in industries such as brick kilns, rice mills, agriculture, embroidery factories, and brothel houses. Although no comprehensive study of forced and bonded labor has been carried out, some NGOs estimate this problem affects tens of millions of Indians. Those from India’s most disadvantaged social economic strata are particularly vulnerable to forced or bonded labor and sex trafficking. Women and girls are trafficked within the country for the purposes of commercial sexual exploitation and forced marriage. Children are also subjected to forced labor as factory workers, domestic servants, beggars, and agricultural workers.” – U.S. State Dept Trafficking in Persons Report, June, 2009
In December 08, a group of us met at the JFK Airport in New York, in transit to Hyderabad, India. There we spent time observing, loving, serving and learning about human trafficking, debt bondage and slavery in the majority of the Indian provinces. The term “out of sight out of mind” kept hitting me right in the middle of my forehead. “How could I have not known that TENS OF MILLIONS of Indian inhabitants are enslaved!” … the thoughts that each person I pass is a potential slave, a sex working, a life begging for the hope of freedom and a life worth living were the most frequent and the most echoed thoughts as we returned home.
But first … Her name was Axshmia, she was the youngest in her family, her mother and father had died, and she lived with her uncle in the Vishakhapatnam province. She was what the Hindu Caste System calls the Shudras or Untouchables. The Untouchables were literally social outcasts, to the point where after tea they were ordered to break the tea cup they drank from so no one else would drink from it. Axshmia, as we were visiting her village, was the “Belle of the Ball”. With a smile that would steal even the hardest heart and eyes that would make anyone gaze longer. Her family is of the poorest in Vishakhapatnam, her mother and father gone and her only guardian is an uncle who has his family to provide for as well as Axshmia.
With all of the variables … the probability of Axshmia being sold into forced labor and or sex trafficking is sky ward.
Resc/You exists because of Axshmia, and the innocent, beautiful and destitute children she stands for.
Resc/You has to happen to see change in not only the lives of the ones who are held in bondage, but also to see change in the hearts of the ones who bind.
-Kris Byerly
Please click here to find out more about the partnership between Resc/You and Spendyourself.
Buy a shirt to support Earthquake relief in Haiti. Read More
Proceeds from the Resc\You shirt will go directly toward funding a scholarship fund for the children of sex workers. “Trafficking is essentially modern day slavery, and currently there are 27 million people in slavery.” Read more on Resc\You… Read More
Scarlet Hope works with women and men in the sex industry. Read More
Did you know: The San Francisco earthquake of 1989 was at the same time of day as the Haiti quake, and was of the same magnitude. Over 200,000 Haitians died. EIGHTY NINE San Franciscans died. How could that be? Read more on Did You Know?… Read More
Our New Club! Walking into an unfamiliar place. Not knowing what to expect we anxiously awaited to see what the owners would say. God has been preparing the hearts of our team for quite some time to step out and take on another club or two. The only way to be able to start serving in a new club is to GO into the club and ask. Read more on Scarlet Hope Journal Entry 2/27/2010… Read More
The story behind our Espere shirt. Two members of Spendyourself were able to travel with Northside Christian Church and film this video as part of their Advent Conspiracy event in December. We thought it certainly helped tell the story as to why we feel so strongly about this project. To read more about the story behind this shirt, please click here. Read more on Haiti Clean Water Video… Read More