For me, it’s seeing injustice and cruelty in the world. And nothing motivates me more than fighting against the cultural slavery of the sex industry.
It involves two of my greatest passions: protecting children and empowering women.
But how do you fight against something as evil as girls being forced into the sex industry due to extreme poverty?
You uproot the problem like a weed before it spreads. You provide the child with an alternative and protect her from being lured into a life of selling her body for money.
For $35 a month, you can sponsor a child at risk of being trapped in a life of cultural slavery.
- Prevent exploitation
In the Bang Na slum of Thailand, children are often left at home alone or with their elderly grandparents while their parents go to work in the city. Many mothers find work in factories or restaurants during the day, but often must work in the booming sex industry at night to make ends meet.
And while these children wait for their parents to come home, they are at risk of being exploited or abused.
Growing up so close to the red-light district also causes children to become numb to the sex industry at a young age. Girls begin to view it as “normal” — after all it’s what their moms and their friends’ moms do. So they are more likely to enter the industry themselves when they grow older.
But you can tell these girls that they have another choice. For $35 a month, you can send one of these children to a local community center where she will learn she is worth so much more.
She will receive access to healthy food, early education, medical care, and a safe, loving environment.
Your sponsored child’s parents won’t have to worry about their daughter being left alone or unattended. And she can begin dreaming of a different life outside of the slum.
Dreaming — and education — are the real antidotes to cultural slavery. Once a child knows a different life is possible outside of the sex industry and is given access to educational opportunities, that’s when the shackles of poverty begin to break.
Like World Help President Noel Brewer Yeatts says, “The greatest weapon of poverty is that it robs people of their choices.”
But when you sponsor a child, you help restore those choices. And through education, you’re showing girls they have other options than life as a sex worker.
- Offer alternatives
In the Banchara community of India, young girls have been forced to enter the sex industry for centuries. It’s a 500-year-old tradition called nari mata that requires the oldest daughter in each family to spend her life selling her body to pay for her brothers’ marriage dowries.
But by sponsoring a girl in India, you can show her that through education, she can grow up to be whatever she wants. Her only limits are her imagination.
Through sponsorship, a child in India will be able to receive an education while living in a safe environment. And as she steps out of a society that tells her she’s only good for one thing, she’ll be able to prepare to become a doctor, a baker, a teacher, an accountant, or anything else she wants to be.
When you sponsor a child, you’re proving to her that her future is valuable and that you want to invest in her dreams.
And if you choose to sponsor a girl who is at risk of being exploited in the sex industry, then you are helping break the chains of cultural slavery.
Right now, a child living in India or Thailand is waiting for your help. Will you respond by choosing to become a sponsor for $35 a month? You’ll be working to give her healthy food, educational assistance, medical care, and the opportunity to thrive.
You can make sure a she escapes a life of pain and systematic poverty. Help ensure a child has a bright future — instead of a fearful one.