Teen Sex Workers Rescued

It is estimated over 27 million people are trapped in slavery today, a large percentage of when are women and children sold into sexual servitude. According to an organizetion called Destiny Rescue. There are more people trapped in slavery today than at any point in history. This is a growing number. Approximately 1.2 million new children will be sold or lured into the sex industry this year.

Destiny Rescue was founded in 2001, and now has 5 project nations across Asia and Africa and 3 funding nations Australia, the USA and Canada.

Their mission statement is to rescue the sexually exploited and enslaved, protect the vulnerable, restore the abused, empower the poor and be a voice.

They began operations in Mozambique in October 2001 where they have a project targetting street kids who are prostituting themselves to survive. They have 5 rescue homes for these kids. Rescue homes are homes for children that have been rescued from prostitution or other sexually exploitative situations.

The children they have in this project have very similar stories. All are orphans, more than half lost their parents to AIDS, many other parents died from malaria and TB.

So being orphans and having no other family to care for them, they have been forced onto the streets, having to find ways to survive. But to make things even harder, not only are they having to try to feed themselves, but they have also been burdened with keeping their little brothers and sisters alive.

They all started to beg for food, and tried to do odd jobs for food, but were unable to get enough to feed themselves and their younger siblings. They heard there was work on the riverfront, but when they got there the pimps got them working in their bars serving drinks and cleaning. They were also made to sleep with men 3-5 times a day – 7 days a week. The pimps were only paying the girls in food for themselves and their little brothers and sisters, and on top of this they were only given $2 a month for performing services a child shouldn’t even know exist.

In Mozambique Destiny Rescue has around 600 kids they are helping, including an orphanage with around 40 children.

In April 2003 they started work in Thailand in the slums in Bangkok. They targeted the very poor, which often meant they were working with people living under bridges.

Tony Kirwan from Destiny Rescue told the Pattaya Times "I remember one time I had a mission team with me and we went to this old ladies home who had taken in a 10 year old girl, as she had been abandoned. Her home was made out of rubbish stuck together with the bridge as her roof. As a team we got in and repaired and replaced walls and then cleaned up all the rubbish around it and laid some crusher dust. It took us a couple of days and we slept on the ground under the bridge overnight. We would be lying there and every time a truck drove over the bridge the ground would shake and wake you up. We had to do this for one night but this old lady had lived under this bridge for almost 30 years! I think it is important putting yourself in situations like this as it creates a great memory… I think we all need to do things like this as it helps show us how blessed we are."

After about a year Destiny Rescue expanded into the north of Thailand working with hill tribe people. In one particular village, there are only 22 families, but 100% of the adults are either using or trafficking drugs. This small village has already had seven men shot and killed as a result of bad drug transactions. Several of the older girls are addicted to drugs and started to prostitute themselves to pay for their addiction. Just before Destiny Rescue started working in the village a little baby died from an overdose as the young mother was using drugs while she was pregnant and so when the baby was born it was also addicted to drugs. It cried a lot so the mother started giving it drugs to keep it quiet. The baby overdosed and died. Destiny Rescue is working with these families to get these kids out of the village and into one of their children’s homes. The longer they are in this village the greater the risk they are of following their parents into drugs or prostitution.

Six months ago Destiny Rescue started working in a couple of villages close to the Laos border. The reason they started here was a little over 80% of the girls are going into prostitution once they become teenagers. As well as trying to find and rescue the girls already in prostitution they are working with the younger girls to help keep them in school and to help them dream and plan towards different jobs.

A strategic part of the rescue work is the Production House they operate. This is a training and employment facility where the girls are trained and employed in jewellery making and sewing etc. The reason these girls are in the sex industry is money related so it is important to be able to offer them a viable alternative once they get out, otherwise the risk of them being lured back is extremely high.

In November 2003 Destiny Rescue started work in Cambodia in Phnom Penh. Tony revealed ‘We went up onto the dump site and looked for kids scavenging. I remember walking up and finding Orm, she was scavenging on the dump, something she did everyday. She was averaging between 50 cents and $1.25 a day from selling what she found. When we first met Orm she was 10 years old, she had never been to school, none of her 3 brothers and sisters had been either. In fact she was the third generation from this family that had never been to school. We managed to get her into a school and my staff told me that her class started after lunch. So she came running home at about 12 noon after spending the morning working on the dump. All the families living around her house came out to see her off to her first day of school. Her mother said that this is the first time she has felt there is hope for her children.’

Destiny Rescue is committed to getting all children in their programs into school, as they firmly believe one of the first steps to break the cycle of poverty is ensuring children get a good education.

They have several homes for young girls rescued out of prostitution and are having unprecedented success with reintegration of the girls. They spend a lot of time rebuilding relationships with the girls and their families before reintegrating them.

"To date we have had a 100% success rate i.e. when it is deemed that it is safe for a girl to go home and we have been able to successfully get her back into her home and village without any big issues." Tony said.

In early January 2005, right after the tsunami they started work in India and later this year are aiming to start new work in Kolkata solely targeting children trapped in prostitution and also bonded slavery. Late last year they started work in Burma with one children’s home with about 10 children and also help another 10 children that are still living with their families. This will expand further.

So Destiny Rescue has been running for a little over 9 years now and has 30 children’s homes with over half of them full of girls rescued out of prostitution. They have teams regularly going into brothels looking for and rescuing young girls.

Tony told the Pattaya Times "I am regularly asked isn’t it too dangerous to be going into these places and getting the girls out? We have to be prepared to take risks and we have to be willing to cross the street to reach out to someone who is hurting. I would rather die for something than from something. I would rather risk it all and write history than live a safe non effective life and die in my sleep at the age of 120."

"One of Destiny Rescue’s main focuses is rescuing children from sexual exploitation. There is no "How to manual" on how to rescue young kids out of prostitution. We are hacking out our own pathways, working out what works, what doesn’t. But to do this we have to embrace risk as a necessary factor in what we do. If our teams were not prepared to cross the street, if they weren’t willing to go into situations that have risks at many levels, then these young girls would stay trapped in a life of daily abuse. I have a dream, that one day, in our lifetimes we will see child slavery come to an end and children will be free to live as children, without fear of being sold or abused." Tony added.

"There are times when I am in a brothel undercover and sitting there looking at some young girl and I start tearing up as I think this could be one of my daughters. I start thinking, where are these girls Dads', where are these girls Mums'? Sadly, most of the time the girls' Dads and Mums have played a big role in them being there. They may not have sold them, but they know what they are doing and love the money that is being sent home more than they love their daughters. In fact just a couple of weeks ago I was sitting in a brothel in the outskirts of Pattaya talking with the Mamasan about how I wanted a young girl, when she called over a girl in her mid teens and made her sit on my lap. As we started talking about how much it would be for sex and if I could take her to my hotel, this young girl had tears streaming down her face. As a Dad, my heart melts for these girls. They have been betrayed by the very ones who were meant to be protecting them. The very ones that should be kicking these brothel doors down and take their kids back by force are the same ones turning a blind eye to the daily abuse their daughters are suffering just so they can continue to line their pockets with money." Tony said.

Destiny Rescue has just launched a new campaign called The 26 Second Challenge. Every 26 seconds a child is being lured or sold into the sex trade. There are approximately 2 million children currently trapped in sexual slavery, forced to have sex with adults several times a day.

We live in a world where we are constantly bombarded with issues that are overwhelming and beyond our control. We hear and see things that move us deeply, yet we are left feeling impotent in our ability to effect any real change. This can be the feeling we are left with when we hear the fact that a new child is forced or lured into the sex trade every 26 seconds.

The 26 Second Challenge was designed to empower ordinary people with the ability to do something incredibly significant towards ending child trafficking and slavery, by doing something that in comparison is relatively small.

To join the challenge visit www.26secondchallenge.org

Tony went on to say ‘Sadly, these girls don’t have a father or mother willing to risk it all, willing to do whatever it takes to rescue them. I am asking you to be their mum’s and dad’s, their big sisters, big brothers and say "I can do something".’

Visit their website www.destinyrescue.org