The smaller birds take their share and fly away

On the next street over, trashbags sit next to sidewalk trees and are labeled “BED BUGS DO NOT OPEN”

They assume that feral cats can read and would avoid during its nightly scowl

And that the man without a home cares

Predictably, the bags have been perforated the morning after

Birds wearly peck away what food remains

The smaller ones carry theirs away

Where are the bed bugs

They know the smell of CO2 and find their way

On the next street over, a sign is read “Men Working”

It’s important to specify whether it is a man that is working or a woman

Pedestrians do care

People walk around the sign

The pigeons shift their waddling to accomodate too

The smaller ones fly away

An old man on a wheelchair is pushed towards my direction

His eyes caught mine and he looked away

I greet him when he looked back and he replies but is pushed away

The one doing the pushing is also hissing

I walk away

—

I recently moved to New York to begin a one year fellowship in the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene.  During my commute to and from work, I noticed that New York City is like sticking equal ends of a magnet together; it just doesn’t work.  People and things like to have their space.  I love New York City because people are simply unassuming.  Strangers are cynical if I ever greeted them.   I also enjoy the occasional chuckle from the most bazaar people, places, things.  Sometimes I wish things could be a  bit more intimate, but for the most part, I hide under my shades.

By Jimmy Lam

I spent one day and two nights in the cabin.  When I had gathered the courage to muster a voice to ask Shirazi if we were almost there yet, he told me to shut my mouth.  I fell silent until I felt the need to use the toilet.  He’d press hard against the breaks so that my head banged against the mesh barrier between Shirazi and me.  I didn’t speak again until we arrived at Sunita’s. 

When I woke up from the night’s drive, I was on the floor with a room full of other girls.  The girls were giggling, and I couldn’t understand why until I pushed the weight of my upper body with both hands unto my feet in a kneeling position.  I was wet.  I had held my urge to urinate for the entire ride and finally it flooded me while I was asleep.  I also noticed on the unfinished clay floor that there was blood. A puddle of urine was decorated by thick swirls of what presumably was my own blood.  I knew it was not my period because mother had said it would only happen once every month.  When I stood up to my feet, I felt a stinging pain and discomfort between my legs.  I couldn’t conceptualize why this pain was tearing from deep within me and scraping against my lower spine.

Before I could inquire through the other girls where I was or who they were, Shirazi came into the room and introduced me to my first client.  My urine-soaked dress alarmed Shirazi.  He’d say to the client, this one’s new, please excuse her behavior.  The client was all the more enthused that none had touched me prior, or so he thought.

After I bathed, I was quickly cornered in a room.  Screaming got me nowhere; he would slap me with his knuckles and wrangle my neck from behind with his right arm and clutch onto my genitals with his left hand until I was just about unconscious.   When he asked me to take off my clothes, I refused.  He then took off his belt with the assumption that I knew the consequences if I did not obey.  I refused.  With his clenched jaws and pursed lips, he kept his eyes on mine, as he slowly folded his belt in half.   Without any warning, he whipped me across my face, barely missing the cornea of my eyes and commanded with a direct and dry voice that I take off my clothes.   He belted me again, yet another surprise, in the same spot that just had just begun to pulsate with heat from the first whip.  I bled and turned around to begin removing my dress.  I was tremulous and too uncouth to unbutton.  Before I could stumble anymore, he pushed me unto the bed, teared at my dress, and demanded that I put my mouth on his members.  I could not bear the most putrid smell of fermenting cheese below his skin.   The client forced me to lick at the filth and said that if I dared bite him, he would ensure my mouth would never close again.  Afterwards, he forced himself inside me.  The pain may have been excruciating.  I could not tell.  Shrouds of darkness enveloped my eyes.

When I woke up again, I was back in the room with the other girls, lying in the same position that I had soaked.  The smell of my own urine had not left.  From that day on the sight or the smell of any dairy product was enough to induce vomiting.

I finally understood where the pain between my legs had come from, but I did not understand who stole my virginity.  When I had my first period, my mother told me that I shall not be with men until marriage to preserve my purity and that should I fool around, I would be forced to marry the man that enters me.  I still do not know who took my virginity, perhaps it was Shirazi or one of his co-workers.  It is probably better if I do not know.

I could hear the whispers of the other girls.  Many were from Nepal shipped here to India, many with similar stories as mine.  Most seem indifferent with this lifestyle because they do not know of any other.

For those who were sold to Shirazi since they were toddlers, Sunita’s is a shelter, a place where they receive a distorted sense of comfort and support.  For those suddenly taken away from their families like me, there is a sense of emptiness and passivity.  They…we no longer define our work as sex or rape.  These words attach a certain sense of emotion to them, an emotion that we do not possess, cannot possess.  We cannot feel or we would be drowned by dangerous concoctions of terror, misery, despair, and depression.  We have nowhere to go, nothing to look forward to, and harboring these feelings bequeaths a false sense of hope that would keep me earnestly looking forward, earnestly looking forward to a sinking boat for refuge.  We see a client and it is like seeing another rock on the road.  We push away these rocks on our paths so that we can move onward towards the unknown.

Shirazi pulled me aside at the end of some days and beat my feet with a wooden broom stick.  He wouldn’t use the metal pole that kept the front entrance open to beat me anymore after he broke my ribs the first day I started working.  Another injury like that would cost him the sum of 15 clients per day or more.  He also learned not to beat areas where I would receive visible scars, as this would generate fewer clients for me.

Sometimes I try to make the best out of what I have, but Shirazi numbs us with opium, such that the beatings don’t even hurt.  I’ve come to enjoy the beatings; they intensify the high.  Sometimes I would miss the 15 clients per day quota just so that I could have a thrill.  I guess you could say I am thrill-driven, but I’ve never seen much beyond the confines of Sunita’s or the dull highs from the impurity of the drugs.  But I try not missing my quota too often.  Sometimes if I don’t shed tears from the beatings, Shirazi would have me until he saw that I could shed no more tears.  Only Shirazi can make me feel like a cow being milked for all its worth.  Then the next day would start…all over again.

I’ve been here for a total of six years now.  I started when I was 14 years of age.  It was the second week that I was enslaved in Sunita’s when Shirazi told me that my mother had paid 360 rupee (the equivalent of $5) to Shirazi to sell me to his brothel at Sunita’s.  I found out when I insisted on leaving to see my parents.  I still send them money even though I will probably never see them again.  The 14 years that they did raise me were the only 14 years that I understood love.

Back at home, my mother would wake up every morning to send my brother off to school.  She’d come back and brush my hair 100 times through with a comb made from a water buffalo’s horn.  That’s how I learned to count.  I also remember how mother would sing Timrai Mayale, as I counted off to a 100 strokes.

Chudaina Timro Mayale Yedi Timi Nai Yeha Nabhaya 
Chudaina Timro Mayale Yedi Timi Nai Yeha Nabhaya

After brushing my hair, my mother would take a damp cloth to wipe away the dirt on the corner of my eyes and gently kiss me on my forehead and whisper in my ears ma timilai maya garchhu.  The day that she did not follow this routine was the day I met Shirazi.

I was told I would be attending school with my brother.

In the car off to school, I was elated and frightened at the same time.  There I was in the back cabin of the car with only one square window in the back that allowed me to see the last glimpse of the only person who ever loved me.  As the car zoomed off with rattles of smug from the engine, I could see mother’s discomfort through the square window.  She brushed her index finger through the needles of the comb that she would have brushed me with that day and watched as I stared back with my palms pressed against the window, outlining the steam imprints of my hands.

Their dreams of becoming something beyond themselves suddenly narrowed into a sphere of solemn emptiness.   The best dreams they ever had were the dreams in which they never existed.   Is the life of those who have been sold to sexual exploitation worth living?  To those who have been enslaved, it is not.  Rape, further confinement, drugging, threat to families, and fear of deportation serve as deterrents of escape.  Sex trafficked victims comprise a portion of the 12M people reported by the US government to be trafficked annually.

In hopes for a better lifestyle, many victims of sex trafficking are promised employment, education, and technical training, only to find themselves displaced far from home in a “workplace” drastically different from the one initially described by “employers”.
A part of what fuels sex trafficking is the destitution of families compounded by the vulnerabilities crystallized by gender inequality.  A gut-wrenching reality exists whereby parents knowingly sell their children off to sex trafficking in order to gain a modest income.  Moreover, in countries where there is gender inequality, females are the prime target for sex trafficking.

Next to females, children are the most vulnerable.  Each year it is approximated that over two million children are exploited for commercial sex trade.  Crossing the line of moral and ethical standards to accommodate normal practices across domestic borders increases the demand for sex trafficking of children.  Tourists that find anonymity and the availability of children are prime criminals for exploiting our youth.  Cases have been reported where pediatricians and university professors have been criminalized for their acts abroad.  Some say if you wouldn’t do it at home, don’t do it elsewhere.  However, when the it involves the most delicate forms of life on earth (our youth), there can be no exceptions.  Neither cultural nor socio-economic justifications can be used to excuse the exploitation of youth.

Question for you: Are you worth more than a buffalo?  You’re first reaction may be one of confusion.  You may say I am a human, not an object with a price tag.  You’re second reaction may be that even if you did have a price tag, it would be much more than that of a buffalo.  Here’s the truth, in India, children are worth 3.3% of buffaloes; with 500 rupees you can purchase a child, and with 15000 rupees you can purchase a buffalo.  As for health risks, 50-90% of children rescued from brothels in Southeast Asia are infected with HIV, ignoring the plethora of other sexually transmitted diseases that are curable.

I hesistate to describe the experiences endured by victims.  Only the words of victims can express the psychological and physical trauma from such exploitation.  My deepest condolences go to those whom have never experienced what life beyond the constraints of pimps is like.  I cannot see past the evil that exists with sex traffickers.  To steal one’s life is a loss of two lives, one belonging to the victim and the other to greed and evil.  What I truly hope is that one day those who have taken the lives of these victims can reflect on all the evil that they have done and channel their negativity into streams of conscience that exists with humanity in order to feel, even for a brief second, what those that have been hurt have felt.  They too are human.

Sources of information:

1. http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/142979.pdf
2. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article1610133.ece

Real question for you:

There is brewing debate about whether or not prostitution promotes sex trafficking.  What’s your opinion? Leave comments below.

Stay tuned: next blog is on innovative ways people have taken action.