Abandoned-Orphaned

Would You Press the Button? (part three)

We press that button in other ways also.

As we dwell within our entertainment-oriented, pleasure-seeking, self-indulgent domain, we ignore the plight of the world’s masses. As we give time and attention to the things that bring us materialistic or experiential satisfaction, we become apathetic to the mega-issues of our day.

We spend evenings absorbed by NBC, HBO and PPV, while people die in Darfur and the Congo. We fill our schedules with all manner of pleasurable activities and leisure occasions, while children are being raped for profit in Cambodia. We watch hundreds of hours of sporting events each year, while an emaciated worker is held in continual debt bondage to a brick kiln in India.

Where is our sense of outrage?

It has been numbed and replaced by the selfish pursuits of all that our culture has to offer.

Entertainment and material that "moth and rust will destroy" have been prioritized over giving time, attention and resources to our neighbors around the world.

Each time we tune into the next pointless TV show, instead of volunteering at a non-profit ministry, we are pushing the button.

Each time we splurge on trivialities and frivolities, instead of giving those funds to save a life in the developing world, we are pushing the button. We are choosing our pleasure over somebody else’s existence or well-being.

The 2006 American Time Use Survey, conducted by the Bureau of Labor Statistics of the U.S. Department of Labor, revealed that:

On an "average day" in 2006, persons in the US, age 15 and over, slept about 8.6 hours, spent 5.1 hours doing leisure and sports activities, worked for 3.8 hours, and spent 1.8 hours doing household activities. The remaining 4.7 hours were spent doing a variety of other activities, including eating and drinking, attending school, and shopping. Watching TV was the leisure activity that occupied the most time, accounting for about half of leisure time, on average, for both men and women.

Obviously, an "average day" factors in weekends and the reality that some activities are only done by a subset of the population. It is therefore designed to represent "adult society as a whole." Given that clarification, doesn’t it appear that our society can give more time and attention to the problems of the world, if only by replacing a few hours of TV per week?

We obviously devote a lot of our schedule to shopping. We live in a country that spends over $3 Billion on fine fragrances at department stores each year (not including Internet purchases and regular perfumes); a country that disperses over $250 million annually on just mascara alone; a country that will pay $15 billion this year for pet food, four times the amount spent on baby food. We dish out further billions on pet toys and accessories.

Time we invest in watching reruns and purchasing fancy fragrances could be used to save lives. Money we spend on pampering pets could be used to rescue the street child that nurses off of a stray dog in Bombay.

We’ve got it all wrong.

We keep pressing the button.

To be continued...

Would You Press the Button? (part two)

I see the button as an allegory, a metaphor of sorts.

The fact of the matter is that we press that button every day.

As we go about our daily lives of comfort and excess, without consideration of how our choices and actions might impact others, we adversely affect ‘strangers’ the world over.

When we buy a new bathroom rug because the last one is apparently out of style, we keep an eight year-old boy, Rajan, chained to a loom in Nepal.

When we pick up a latte from our favorite barista, we fuel a conglomerate that forces Juan, a poor Costa Rican coffee grower, to sell at prices far below what would allow him to afford that same cup of coffee for himself.

When we buy the latest fancy T-Shirt with gold embossing at XYZ Casuals, we rob Ajay from ever leaving the cotton plantation that holds him and his sisters in perpetual bondage in South India.

When we go on an exotic spa vacation to Southeast Asia, we entrap Isra, a fifteen year-old Thai girl from the impoverished hill tribes, in a world of daily violation and exploitation.

When we visit that adult Website that our teachers warned us about, we enable pornographers to imprison a scared teenage girl, Imana, in a Burundian hotel room for three days, robbing her of her innocence and privacy.

When we choose to adopt a child from a country with a less-than-reputable child-placement program, we cause Esmeralda to reluctantly give up her new baby girl in Latin America.

When we select that rare hardwood for our kitchen cabinets because it nicely matches the existing wallpaper and is much grander than the neighbor’s remodel, we help to eradicate the ecosystem that sustains Daniel and his family in Brazil.

When we choose to get an organ transplant in Eastern Europe because the wait is too long in the United States, we cause the abduction of Serge, a street child in Moldova, and the subsequent harvesting of his kidneys.

Whether it’s the big and profound (organ transplants, Internet pornography, and international adoptions), or the seemingly trite and trivial (cups of coffee, T-shirts, kitchen cabinets, vacations, and bathroom rugs), we constantly enslave, maim and kill our neighbors around the planet.

What’s unsettling is that the facts are out there and are readily available. They can be researched with relative ease. But we simply don’t have the time and inclination to do so.

We’re just much too busy...and comfortable.

We keep pressing the button.

To be continued...

A Sense of Urgency

Our fourth stop to view church-based school programs being conducted amongst the ethnic Vietnamese living on the waterways in Cambodia, took us across the Mekong from the capital city of Phnom Penh. Here, set in the current against a small chiseled cliff on the opposite bank, sits a small community of boats and barges within eyeshot of the metropolis that preys upon its children.

As I was sharing and praying with the young students, two of our group spoke with the teachers. When asked how often children in the community are sold to traffickers, the response was an affirmation of steady frequency. The teachers then pointed out the two oldest girls in the classroom, aged 12 or 13, and stated that, "If they don’t get jobs and provide income for their families soon, they will probably be sold."

These same girls smiling for my camera lens in a school setting could very soon be forced to pose for pornographic photos as men repeatedly take advantage of them, up to twenty times per day.

Our minds went into action. The need for sound research and approach collided with an immediate sense of urgency. This is typically the case with such scenarios. One has to figure out the right culturally-relevant strategy and implementation steps through the local indigenous churches, but also acknowledge that, as each day passes, more and more children are placed in imminent danger. (Please view my related, ‘Green Lights’ post regarding this delicate balance.)

And so this is my promise:

We’re quickly going to assess trade-skill development programs that also provide immediate income opportunities for these older children as an alternative to being sold into prostitution. These programs will include capital equipment needs and micro-finance initiatives to then place fully-trained girls into positions of self-sustainability. As we evaluate the market opportunities for the goods these girls can produce, we will also open up western markets to them through inventive Internet-based tools.

After all, World Orphans not only seeks to respond to orphaning and abandonment, but prevent them.

........................................................................................

If you are interested in contributing to this pilot program that will be executed using trusted, experienced partners, please send donations to World Orphans and write "Child Sex-Trade Prevention" in the memo line of your check.

World Orphans
1840 Woodmoor Dr., Suite 100
Monument, CO 80132
1-888-ORPHANS
719-487-1700

All contributions are tax deductible and eternally significant.

A Game of Thirds

After we rumbled down the dirt road and past the wooden houses on stilts at the shoreline, we came to an opening, a dock of sorts. There, we walked over deeply-cracked mud and boarded a longboat that would take us to the other side of the slow-moving Mekong.

Barges with homes built upon them were anchored close to the shore; just a few feet away from Cambodian soil, but a whole culture apart. Different language and customs. Common problems.

The motor’s rhythm was labored and irregular, but it was enough to propel us by this first cluster of refugees and illegal immigrants and across the dirty expanse to the opposite bank. There, we docked at a floating church that was running a school for children, many of them orphaned or abandoned.

Current estimates of the Vietnamese community in Cambodia range from 100,000 to over 2 million. Citizens of neither Cambodia nor Vietnam, many live on the lakes and rivers in flotillas, waterborne villages huddled together for protection and community.

We boarded the church where thirty or so children were diligently studying at rows of desks as part of a program funded by our hosts. The gentle rocking of the mobile vessel spoke of the villagers’ precarious position, caught in a land of prejudice, discrimination and persecution, but unwelcome back in the socialist land of their heritage lest they spark a counter-revolution.

To be Vietnamese in Cambodia, especially as one engaged in subsistence life on the lake or river, is to be a ‘yuon,’ a person regarded by most Cambodians as ‘lower than scum.’ Widely resented, these poor fishermen are frequent targets of political power plays and hate crimes. Various purges and sporadic attacks have brought death to them and their families, including the massacre of children in a floating video game parlor. Viewed as intruders, stealers of fish, and polluters of waterways, they are unwelcome guests in a culture where many seek to eradicate or expel them.

Lack of citizenship privileges, restricted access to basic education, social exclusion, illiteracy, limited trade skill opportunities, strong obligations to paying family debt, and extreme poverty all work together to attract the wolves. It’s no wonder that the children of these displaced Vietnamese communities are constantly preyed upon by traffickers.

The net result is a horrible game of thirds...

Over one-third of the 60,000 to 100,000 full and part-time prostitutes in Cambodia are under 18 and most are Vietnamese girls, many stolen or hoaxed into sexual slavery. The impoverished Vietnamese boat people are so desperate for income that one third of the families have willingly sold a child to sex traffickers in order to survive. Another one third has seriously considered doing so.

I scanned the children in rows before me and looked at every third child.

How many of them might be sold?

If not for this church-based education program, how many of them would already be in brothels by now?

The Great Divide

After twelve years of civil war (officially ending last year but with some rebel holdouts), combined with severe drought and disease, Burundi’s deteriorating civil and social infrastructures are leaving hundreds of thousands of orphans without hope in a country of great division.

Burundi has a population of just 7.5 million, yet there are 620,000 orphans. Almost 10% of the population is orphaned! Over half of the population (53%) are children and therefore can’t be considered part of the rescue and care mechanism for these children. What’s more, that means that 18% of the country’s children are orphans!

Can you imagine if almost 1 in 5 children in the US were orphans?

If your child is in a kindergarten or Sunday school class of 25 children, what if 5 of her classmates were parentless?

In Burundi, that wouldn’t be the case, though. Instead of being in school, many of these children are victims of the streets or are exploited as domestic slaves, forced to serve in combat or as young ‘wives’ for soldiers, trafficked to richer nations to become the sexual property of others, or shuffled into the growing industry of child sex tourism.

Deep ethnic schisms further spur this activity. People that normally wouldn’t use or deal in the flesh of children, rationalize that the child of the enemy is less-than-human, a ‘cockroach’ to be abused, bought, sold and disposed of. The children become the smallest victims of the ethnic discrimination and severe poverty that define their world.

And they receive their death sentences from AIDS.

The very poor security situation in Burundi also assists the travesties. Violations against children occur with impunity. Sometimes, those entrusted to care for the children are the perpetuators themselves. They don’t fear ramifications and start to view the children as personal property to be used for their own devices.

Although there are pre-existing laws against child prostitution in Burundi, there are no laws on the books against trafficking in persons. Weak laws and weak enforcement bodies mean that hundreds of thousands of orphans are literally sitting ducks in a country full of people itching to find resources for personal pleasure and gain...especially at the expense of the rival ethnic group.

Welcome to Burundi

The elevator lobby at the Accor Hotel in Bujumbura is lined with a series of framed posters denouncing child sex tourism.

Likewise, a laminated brochure entitled, "Together, Fighting Against Child Sex Tourism" is prominently displayed on the desk in our room.

Welcome to Burundi.

The text of the brochure, produced in both English and French, is as follows:

Sexual tourism involving children is unacceptable. It is a crime punished by law.

A Worldwide Curse

The number of sexually exploited children is estimated to be between 2 and 3 million.

Child sex tourism has increased considerably over the past 20 years. It is a worldwide problem often made worse by organized trafficking networks.

Tourism development in a poor country almost inevitably entails an increase in child prostitution.

A child never chooses to be sexually exploited. If this happens, it is because he or she is forced to, often by a pimp or by extremely precarious and difficult situations.

Who Are the Abusers?

They are not necessarily pedophiles or organized criminals.

Very often, they are travelers who do not have a sexual preference for children, but who exploit children as a result of being anonymous and behaving differently whilst on travel.

Abusers sometimes use cultural or economic arguments to ease their guilt.

No argument can justify reducing a child to a common commodity or a sexual object.

Our Commitment

Sexual exploitation seriously endangers a child’s physical, psychological, and social development and sometimes even his or her life. Faced with the scale of this problem and its consequences, it is essential that the tourism industry becomes involved in this fight.

As a major actor in the tourism industry, Accor is committed to helping fight child sex tourism.

Accor’s main actions consist in implementing programs to train staff and to raise awareness among customers and partners in its host countries.

What's Next? (Part two - Chilling)

The sounds from the adjoining room were excruciating to my ears. I tried burying my head in the pillow, but to no avail. The act being perpetrated on the young girl next door, no older than 13 or 14 years-old, was an evil that pierced through any auditory dampening. On the surface, she would appear to be a willing participant. But I knew only too well that she was likely coerced or forced to have sex with strangers multiple times her age, dozens of times a day.

The 50-ish American was a loud talker. I heard each pitiful word with clarity. I wanted to bust through the dividing door and put an end to it. But I knew such intervention would only disrupt one exchange and get me severely beaten up by a pimp in the process. The girl would then be shuffled off to the next predator within ten minutes.

I did call down to the front desk to complain of a loud, ‘inappropriate’ act next door but, predictably, no assistance came. The desks clerks were no doubt paid to turn a blind eye or, even worse, were part of its arrangement.

Ultimately, the problem has to be primarily tackled at the core. These children need to be rescued from the streets, rescued from abandonment, rescued from poverty and entrapment, rescued from physical and spiritual depravity.

After the girl had showered, the next words out of the American’s mouth were...chilling. Given the context, they are probably some of the most repulsive, angering words you will see reproduced here.

"Honey, there ain’t a lick of hair on you!"

No doubt, this will be an exploit that this degenerate man will openly share with other sex tourists. The line above will represent a boast, not just an observation. It will be a trophy comment of a conquest, not just a descriptive phrase.

What drives a man to such depths...where the exploitation of vulnerable or enslaved children becomes a source of pleasure, pride and accomplishment?

We do indeed know the answer. And we do indeed know the solution.

For decorum and restraint, I will not go into further detail of the subsequent acts and comments that occurred on the other side of my wall that night, but the next hour involved a series of orders and the girl’s methodical submission and execution of them. She was simply an object that was to carry out a multi-course menu of sexual demands. From the American’s perspective, she probably had no personality or worth. She was simply a ‘thing’ to be used to bring him satisfaction.

I had to leave very early for my flight that morning. I wrote a note that I will someday recall and post here also. It was a message of rebuke, but also of suggested action and hope. It would have most probably fallen out of the newspaper that he picked up from his doorstep later that morning.

I hope that my words were convicting...and chilling.

(Images: Vulnerable children in the slums of Manila, October 2006)

Part one of this post can be viewed here.

What's Next?

MANILA, The Philippines, October 2006

Once again hopping between a few nations in Southeast Asia, I had a quick overnight for about nine hours in Manila before having to return there for a more comprehensive visit a few days later. Every minute of rest was precious. I wanted a hotel in close proximity to the airport.

I approached the visitor information desk after exiting the arrival lobby.

"Sir, the closest hotel is the Hyatt Regency"

"Well, it should be a step up from most of the missionary guesthouses I’m used to staying in," I thought to myself.

Upon arriving at the hotel I was then greeted with, "Mr. Paul, we would like to offer you a free upgrade to our executive level floor."

"Hmmmm...this is getting even better."

I was prepared to settle into the lap of luxury for one night, a chance to clean off some of the grime accumulated in the prior two stops in Southeast Asia. After all, I had been away from my family for eight days so far and deserved a little pampering, right?

Unfortunately, what the world has to offer is exactly that – what the world offers.

I stood on my ninth-floor balcony overlooking the bustling nighttime activity below. From my elevated vantage point there was a huge billboard staring right back at me. Its whole surface was covered with a scene of a scantily-dressed woman sitting in a bubbling Jacuzzi. Her legs were seductively propped up on the side of the tub and she gazed with provocative eyes. The lettering on the billboard posed the question, "What’s next?" In the upper corner of the advertisement was a picture of a Timex watch. I guess viewers were supposed to make the connection that it was "time" for some carnal pleasures.

I then went to the VIP lounge. It was an eclectic mix of "upper crust" persona that one might expect to see in the executive floor of a luxury hotel – the local jet set, international businessmen, and globe-trotting playboys accompanied by Philippino women dripping in pearls and tight dresses. There was even a Brit with an Elton John flamboyance added in for good measure.

The table next to me consisted of a sickly-obese American and oily Australian who were in the throes of trading life achievement stories. Each tried to better the other with tales of mega business deals, diving adventures, condos in exotic places and on and on. The discussion then turned to their exploits of women – prostitutes – the world over. They chatted of paid conquests in China, Thailand, Cambodia and beyond. They boasted that they planned to have Philippino girls that very evening..."the younger the better."

I tried hard to stare at them with an intensity designed to burn holes through their foreheads and vaporize their brains, but they were too busy speaking of great achievements and petty lives. I reminded myself that they ultimately weren’t the enemy, just victims of the enemy. I was too tired for a fight, but often wish I could now relive that moment.

I went back to my room disgusted, only to be met by my annoying billboard neighbor intruding through the window. I closed the blinds to shut the image out, but thought to myself, "What’s next?"

I settled down for the night.

Just as Timex watches all over Manila were striking midnight I was awaked from my sleep by the constant clickety-clacking of high heel stilettos on the marble floors outside my room. Doors opened and closed with regularity. A quick glance through the peephole revealed many ladies of the night going in and out of my neighbors’ rooms.

My room was designed to be expandable into a multi-room suite. Only a paper thin door separated me from the adjoining hotel guest, the large American that had been sitting at the table next to mine earlier in the evening. It wasn’t long before his door opened and a girl was welcomed in. The ensuing conversation and deal for flesh were as clear to me as if the discussion had occurred in my very room.

"My parents think I’m a waitress," she said.

"You are a waitress, honey. You’re serving me, right?" was the reply.

More-than-likely, this girl hadn’t told her parents this lie. Pimps will often require that their young girls make statements to clients to give the impression that they are selling their bodies willingly. The probable reality was that this girl was forced into prostitution and will receive a harsh beating, or execution, if it ever came out that she had solicited a customer for help in escaping her bondage or had given even a remote impression that she was actually being raped for profit.

"Go ahead and get yourself showered," he then said.

To be continued...

Killing Fields (part two)

Cambodia’s children left parentless by the Khmer Rouge are now adults. Today there is another relentless killer on the prowl, churning out a new generation of orphans in this devastated Southeast Asian country. It moves more silently but is no less tragic or deadly. It tortures and kills from within. It doesn’t discriminate.

Trying to claw out of poverty in a country ravished by horrific bloodshed, desperate women reluctantly turned to the ‘world’s oldest profession.’ Widowed and unable to support themselves, they came to rely on the only resource they had left – their own battered and broken bodies. They had already lost everything else...their hope...their dignity. They were ready to be taken advantage of by an evil that was willing and able to shred their flesh and devour them, body and soul.

Men whose wives were killed by the Khmer Rouge tried to find solace or release in alleyways and brothels. International sex tourism in Cambodia started to flourish as authority structures had been totally decimated or corrupted, thereby allowing operators and predators to flood in without fear of reprisals. The sex industry became the breeding ground for the next wave of death and bumper crop of orphans – HIV/AIDS.

Adding insult to injury, the orphaned children became preferred sexual targets. Many are now raped everyday by dozens of clients who willingly pay for the ‘privilege’ of having sex with a child. Law enforcement is paid off and not only turns a blind eye, but provides protection for those who profit from the sexual brutalization of children as young as four years old. Armed Cambodian authorities therefore continue to prey upon and kill their own people, their own children. The instruments of torment and murder have just taken a different form.

(Image: Paul with shantytown children in Phnom Penh, 2006)

One of our church-based orphan home partners in Phnom Penh has heavily-armed security officers guarding the children within. Unscrupulous adults will come in posing as "long lost relatives" in order to take away young girls and boys for lives of forced prostitution or personal sexual slavery. Fraudulent paperwork and other elaborate schemes are devised in order to steal the children from the orphan homes.

Whether it’s the fiendish barbarians of the Khmer Rouge smashing children’s heads on tree trunks or wicked pedophiles forcibly ripping away childhood innocence, the evil is the same. Power, control and personal pleasure reign supreme in the black hearts of these men. Warm blood on the ground or infected blood in the veins, the end results are the same...excruciating torture, shame and death.

Persecution and massacre come in many forms, stemming from the same root of violence and hatred. Cambodia has simply passed from one form to another, from one killing field to another.

Roadsides

While on the flight from Florida to Costa Rica, I sat next to a businessman who is based in San Jose, the capital city. A story was then recounted to me that serves as a painful illustration of tragic abuse and grave choices here in Costa Rica.

Maria, Esmeralda, and Juan are siblings. The two girls were repeatedly raped by their stepfather. Like father, like son, this despicable man’s eldest boy started to molest young Juan and forced him into frequent sodomy. After a continued pattern of violation, the three pledged to run away together. Life on the streets was extremely difficult and food was very hard to come by. They eventually had to turn to the only sure-fire, income-producing activity they were familiar with – sexual acts.

On a particular night, the three sat huddled together under a flickering streetlight. They were approached by a stocky Western man in his forties. Maria was the only one to speak.

"Are you looking for something tonight?"

Her question was met by a telltale nod. She continued.

"I’m 15 and it would cost you $20. My younger sister here is 12 and goes for $40. If you like boys, my little brother is just 10, but it will cost you much more - $100. Oral is cheaper and there is another price if you want to take pictures."

She ended her menu by asking, "Who and what do you want?"

(Image: Boy at Grace House, Costa Rica, 04/07)

The scene was watched by another Westerner. He stepped in and offered the children $100 each to go with him to his house. Maria gleefully accepted on behalf of them all. The first man went off in a huff.

Once in this second man’s home, the children were told that they were not permitted to leave. Other children were already present there also.

He then shared with them that they would now take a warm bath, be given new clothes and served a full meal. He said that they would no longer have to live in fear; that they would no longer have to perform sexual acts for pedophiles; that they would be educated and cared for, protected and provided for.

A modern-day Good Samaritan. Unfortunately, it’s no longer just about picking up a wounded man on the side of the road. It’s about retrieving 10, 12, and 15 year-olds from roadsides of nightly stain and shame.

(Image: Paul with three children at Grace House, Costa Rica, 04/07)