In 2013 I attended Passion, a Christian conference for college students across the U.S. At this conference, I learned about modern-day slavery for the first time. I was 21 years old.
That year, there were an estimated 27 million modern-day slaves in the world (it’s now over 40 million), and just a few organizations fighting for the freedom and rights of victims. I was shocked; I didn’t know that someone like me, a mere college student, could fight a phenomenon of that magnitude.
Throughout the conference, we were encouraged to learn about human trafficking so that we could become abolitionists. However, it wasn’t until I heard the story of a young girl who had escaped slavery that I truly believed that my life could impact and help change someone else's.
On the second evening of the conference, we were informed that we would watch a video highlighting the experience of someone caught in slavery. They introduced the short film, warning us of its content and asking us not to film any of it to protect those featured. The lights dimmed, the video began, and the voice of a young girl broke the silence as she started to narrate her journey into sex trafficking.
We learned that, like many other young girls in Southeast Asia, this girl had been sold into sex slavery by her parents when she was 12 years old. She recounted the journey from her parents’ house, across waters on a ferry, to a dirty place in a city.
In the video, they explained the process of “breaking” by way of physical and sexual abuse and told us this happened to her more than once when she was moved from one brothel to another. Furthermore, they said that at one of the brothels, she was forced to stand at a glass window to lure customers into purchasing, and abusing, her body.
There were tears in my eyes, and my stomach was in knots. I couldn’t believe that this was happening to women and girls all over the world. I quickly turned my attention back to the video as the girl began to talk about a woman who had stopped to look at her while she stood on the other side of that glass window. She clarified that while many people had glanced at her, not many had looked at her.
Moments later, we learned that the woman worked for an anti-trafficking organization (Love416) that helps children escape trafficking and exploitation. So, when that woman saw the young girl standing behind the glass window, she saw a child victim, not a “sex worker.”
FOR THE ONE
The video ended, and there was a collective silence and sorrow that lingered for a couple of minutes. That sorrow, however, was interrupted by a quiet voice. These words were spoken clearly, and nervously, by a young woman: “one person…” She paused and started again. “It took one person. One woman saw me and cared enough. Now I am free.”
The young girl whose experience we had just learned about had traveled to the U.S. to finish her story and give us that message. She was now an adult, a survivor, and a Christian, standing before 60,000 students encouraging us to be the one person in someone’s life. At that moment, I knew that I wanted to fight for the freedom of another person.
The conference ended the following day. I returned to college, researched and learned about human trafficking, and began telling others about it.
I still strive to raise awareness of the injustices of modern slavery. And my goal is still to fight for the one.
