There is a plethora (that one's for you, Katelyn and Josh) of things that have happened since my last post, but I will attempt to highlight what I think may be the most life changing thing that has happened to me...(Not that there hasn't been more).
Two weekends ago, we got the opportunity to visit Burma, a place that has been highlighted in our Exclusion and Exploitation class for the vast amounts of social, political, environmental, and economic issues that the land has...
One of the issues there is human trafficking. The country (until 2010) was (or some would still say, is) ran by a military regime that took power through a coup in 1962. The brutal regime has since accrued thousands of crimes against humanity, attempting to basically torture, rape, murder and eventually eradicate every single minority group within Burma. (Which, by the way, has about 30-40% of minorities in it's population.)
The disgusting and inhumane recklessness with which the government has led it's people has ran the economy straight into the ground, creating an extreme lack of options for the majority of the population in regards to work, etc. Thus, thousands of ethnic minorities are prone to being trafficked by men and women who promise jobs and deliver slavery.
Two weeks ago, I met a survivor of this terrible cycle, who had been rescued from a brothel by my professor's husband when she was just 14.
The survivor, Moon, took us into her home village where her family, and most especially her mother, was. Her mom, who knew our professor from the time her organization rescued Moon, was now blind because she could not access medical care for her diabetes.Things quickly became surreal as we learned that only 4 weeks prior, the family had found out that Moon's sister, Star, had passed away while in prostitution. The mother began to wail, seemingly without end. All we could do was weep with her, and pray in a language she could not understand.
I was completely knocked off of my balance. The horrors of this dark world, the cycles that permeate the lives of these innocent individuals shocked me. I was even more shocked when, later, we heard the rest of the story.
To be brief, Star has a 9 year old daughter, Semia, and a 8 year old son, whom have never been to school. Wanting what was best for her children, Star agreed to join the sex industry--basically the only fruitful career a woman can have in a place like Burma. She went with a man whom she trusted, who promised her the ability to refuse her customers.
A few months later, she became pregnant. Due to Buddhist and Asian cultural values, her immediate feeling was shame. She took pills in an attempt to kill the baby, and ended up killing herself.
At first, I could do nothing but experience heartbreak for this woman, as she watched this never ending, hopeless cycle take the life of her daughter. ...And then we learned that the reason Moon first ended up in slavery was because her mother had sold her.
...I never, ever thought I would be able to empathize with an individual who enabled child sex trafficking.
...But I am pretty sure that Hebrews 4:14 encompasses it.
There is more to the story. There are darker details. There is an entire background of information about the countries of southeast Asia that would help you to understand that most women who end up in prostitution are not actually kidnapped and forced. They are forced by circumstances, which are created by corrupt governments.
Studying Buddhism would help you to understand that women here must repay their parents for all that they have done and that, because they are not men and cannot be monks, the only way to do that is to support the family in this life, physically. At any cost.
Our Western view tells us that's dysfunctional. Surely, counseling and scripture memorization will help. Surely, they must realize that their innocence, that their soul is worth more than to support their families. Surely, the US must impress sanction upon sanction upon sanction on the Burmese government so they can experience consequence for their behavior.. Surely, that would make them change.
If there is one thing I have learned since being here, it is that nothing is black and white.
We did not end there with Moon. In fact I would like to share with you another story about her, but I feel it is necessary to hold off on that. For now, I will leave you with a poem I wrote in the van, through tears, as we pulled away from that oppressed village and into the driveway of our safe, air conditioned hotel.
Somewhere.
and as i washed the
filth off my hands
i couldn’t help but ask
myself if i were also washing away the pain.
the concern that i was
struck with.
the immediate, powerful
release of divine heartache.
an ache that did not
stop in my gut.
one that was not
expelled as the tears fell from her eyes, or mine.
but an ache that
persists.
that cannot—will not—be banished or told to subside.
at the core of who we
are
(creation)
there remains little
but the ability to experience bliss and devastation.
and as her blind eyes
looked up, instinctively,
at a sky she could not
see,
i wondered what wrath
there exists to make such suffering
normative.
i cannot dismiss the
sound of her wailing from my ears.
wails that spoke more
than any sermon i’ve ever heard.
more convicting, i’d
say, than most scripture i read.
i laid my hands on her
broken, weary shoulder
bony from years of
hunger
tense, for decades of
guilt
decades of war.
against enemies that
she cannot see.
with weapons left
unloaded.
soldiers, untrained.
it was warm, and
shaking with her sobs.
no words with which to
pray
groanings to deep for
them.
nothing to do but to
weep with her,
and stare in horror as
the realities of this dark world shattered my confidence, my joy.
…but maybe not my hope.
it was not the end,
but we left anyway.
though i think i could
have stayed, enraptured, for days.
wounded by her wounds.
confused by
circumstance.
wondering the same word
i thought i saw her cracked mouth form:
“why?”
…but then again, she
never spoke the same language as me.
not in words, no; but
in the melodies of her murmurs.
in her futile anguish,
that would not bring back her love.
i watched as her
memories beat her.
worse, still, than the
most wayward forms of torture.
when you hung on the
cross, Lord,
did the nails help you
to feel her pain?
did you see her,
(while she still could
see)
with her brown skinned
teen
with the paper she took
from the man
who would take what was
precious?
your love is higher
than the mountains that surround her village.
it is stronger than the
locked doors of the brothels where
children
lose their innocence.
somewhere, i know, it
still exists in these cycles.
somewhere, i know.
somewhere,
somewhere.
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