*see blog here
Bangkok to Detroit, same same but different
How can two evils be so alike and so different and half a world away from each other?
I’m still processing and working my way through Thailand (I recently went on an anti-human trafficking mission trip). The dark, the evil, the sadness, and also the light, the joy, and the purity of the Father’s love. In Bangkok sex is no secret. It is not hidden and prostitution is socially acceptable. Sex sells on a menu and where there is one girl there is many. One of the hardest realizations for me was the daunting feeling these young girls grow up with knowing the expectation for them to bring in money by way of prostitution is heavily set upon them.....some even from birth. Sixty percent of men that fly into the Bangkok airport fly in for sex. To use, abuse, belittle, and degrade young girls.....because they think they ‘can’ or they feel ‘entitled’, whatever their motive is it is wrong. When you walk down the streets of Pat Pong, the 2nd largest red light district in the world sex is not hidden. Signs that read ‘Super Pussy’ or ‘Super Girls’ are plastered all over. Every corner is home to 2-3 people asking if you want to go to a ‘ping pong show’ which is a sex show. Every bar leaves open just a large enough crack in the door so you can peer your eyes in and see dozens of teenage girls either half-dressed or naked. Innocent baby girls. Yes, there are brothels hidden in the depths of the city that house continual sex trains off 11 year old girls that most do not know about. Yes, there are hidden sex rooms the higher you travel up in the bars. There are also obvious sexual acts that are so sickening you turn your eye and somehow convince yourself what you see is not real… I’m sure that is how those young baby girls feel too. But for the most part, sex in Bangkok sells itself right in front of your eyes. There is a purpose for these tourists, a plan of action, a pre-determined mind set, and innocent lives fall responsible to fulfill.
Almost an entire world away…across oceans and miles away in Detroit, Michigan some of the same evils listed above take place. The difference? In Detroit for the most part it is hidden. You don’t walk down a designated street for young woman or lady boys. You don’t walk down a four block neighborhood and see 4,000 girls/lady boys selling themselves. You don’t walk up and down streets to see young western men (and old ones, too) purchasing sex before your eyes. In Detroit, Michigan, my home, it’s the same but it’s different… sex is hidden. Now if all you’ve ever been exposed to is prostitution within the United States you won’t fully understand this; you may think ‘prostitution is not hidden here’ but when you travel to the worst of the worst, Detroit appears to be a cake walk when compared… but that is not true. Looks are deceiving. Just because we do not have designated streets or sex sold on a menu does not mean that Detroit is any better off than Thailand – but rather the opposite. It’s the hidden that is worse. If 11 year old girls were the same as the 15 year old we met in ‘Super Girls’ bar in Pat Pong they would not be hidden in a brothel… in the same way, if the women in Detroit who are caught up in the Sex trade industry were ‘not in as bad of conditions’ as the others then the evil wouldn’t be hidden. I’ve been all over Detroit at night, 10pm, midnight, 2am, 4am, in the strip clubs, at the bars, strolled over Michigan Avenue and it is nothing like Bangkok. But when you go deeper into the neighborhoods, drive up and down the streets that look like a war zone, peer into the busted windows, boarded up doors, the crack houses……it is there that you will find Bangkok in Detroit.
via Connie Rock
I went out last night with a local ministry who offer prayer and pass out bagged lunches and hygiene packets to the afflicted in those very streets and neighborhoods of Detroit. I had gone with the team prior to my trip to Thailand and then again after my return home. Night and Day difference. I left Thailand thinking ‘what in the world… my city is nothing like this’ and after last night I came home and thought ‘they are almost the same’. How can two evils be so alike and so different and half a world away from each other? In Thailand people say ‘same same but different’ that is what I think about Thailand and Detroit – same, same…but different. Here we have to look for the evil, search for the girls… in Thailand it’s all in front of your face. I’m not saying one is better than the other… actually quite the opposite. Both are disgusting and inexcusable. Last night while driving through these broken neighborhoods I thought I was in a war zone. A similar war zone I felt while in Thailand. These girls were afraid for their lives. The same look of desperation, hopelessness, and distress gazed from their eyes. In the last week three girls were found dead in the neighborhood we were in. All left to die in their own pool of blood from their slit throats. One of the girls was only eighteen, her life barely lived. Each girl we came in contact with (which were many) immediately wanted prayer. Similarly each wanted protection.
This morning the Detroit Free Press released an article stating 70 arrests were made in Metro-Detroit within 3 days in connection to sex trafficking. Five girls and one boy recovered from child prostitution, ages ranging from 13-17. Arrests made in the city I grew up in. Sex trafficking is not just in Bangkok, Thailand or Amsterdam, or any other third world country. Sex trafficking is here. It is in our own backyards. It is everywhere. We must do something besides turn a blind eye to the topic that makes us feel uncomfortable.
Find out what you can do in YOUR community. Find out how YOU can make a difference. And be encouraged… Jesus Christ has OVERCOME this world – and no evil, no prostitution, no pimp, NOTHING CAN OVERCOME HIM! Share His hope, love, joy, and goodness; wherever you are is a good place to start. Pray for your city, your state, your country, and this world. Sex trafficking is the 2nd largest crime in the world and each night thousands and thousands and thousands fall victim. Enough is enough. Let’s change our city.
Google search ‘Human Trafficking in the United States’ = 18,700,000 results
Google search ‘Human Trafficking in Michigan’ = 1,210,000 results
Google search ‘Human Trafficking in Detroit’ = 897,000 results
And pray for me as I seek the Lord on returning to Bangkok in October.
At His Service,
Lindsey
