In the midst of 2009 and world-wide economic contraction, Timothy and Joyce founded “Sparsh” which means “to touch” and the way they have touched so many lives in such a short time is utterly amazing. It is our first stop on our site visits to India and Nepal, and after just a few hours’ sleep it was “today” in India…
Today included a happy reunion with children who, thanks to our partner, will not have to suffer what their mothers have suffered. Bright and well behaved, these “smallies” clambered all over us. They sang for us and recited Bible verses they had learned, then went crazy over Elizabeth’s iPhone with the silly apps.
But today was also a jolt of reality…a trip into the brothel, looking into the hopeless faces of ladies submitted to “the life” and a conversation with a 17-year-old trafficker.
Timothy introduced us to Samir who gave us a look into how the system works. Two years ago at age 15 his mother died and he went to live with his aunt, a brothel owner with mafia ties. She put Samir to work in the family business. He was good at it–he secured 7 or 8 girls every month and poured them into the voracious pit of the Mumbai brothel system. For this, his cut was a bit more than 25% of the $2000 selling price for each innocent young girl. An alluring way to make money in a difficult economy…
There is a large mafia element in India’s trafficking. A common scenario is that mafia scouts look for poor families with young daughters, befriend the father and offer him small loans to keep his family from starvation…until one day they call the loan and take the daughter as payment. Most of these girls cannot read or write and soon bear children in the brothel, a situation that ensures their continued service in order to provide for their own children. Timothy explains that almost all would leave if they knew their children would be cared for…and that’s where Sparsh comes in. They first earn trust, then care for the children, and then ultimately support the mother’s initiative to leave the life.
Of course Samir is not his real name…he’s now a changed person since meeting the Lord and becoming convicted of the evil he was doing. But he is not safe–recently he was badly beaten by mafia–with police cooperation–for turning informant. Saddest of all, was our helplessness–Samir shared the knowledge that in just a few hours three girls are scheduled to be transported. Destination: hell in Mumbai.
