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ALOVE’S
Aaron White recalls the real life story
of an ex-prostitute friend who narrowly
missed becoming a rape and murder victim.
I have a friend who was taught at a
very young age how to prostitute herself.
It was her parents who taught her. She
learned her lessons so well that for
most of her life the sale of her body
has been her main source of income.
When she came into our lives she was
addicted to drugs, and addicted to prostitution.
That may sound strange, but when you
only know one way of making ends meet,
when you know how to score quick money
for quick drugs, the temptation to sell
yourself can be as strong as any other
addiction. After all, it’s only
her body, right? And she had been trained
since childhood that her body was marketable,
the best chance she had at survival.
But survival prostitution is a dangerous
game. Assigning a monetary value to
someone’s body makes it possible
to treat them as property, to be used
and disposed of. In our city there is
a man on trial now for the kidnapping
and murder of 26 women – all of
them prostituted persons. More than
60 women have gone missing in the last
20 years, and it is believed that this
man is responsible for those deaths
as well.
This man had been hosting parties out
at his pig farm on the outskirts of
the city. Tourists would fly in specifically
for the opportunity to rape and abuse
the women this man brought in. He is
accused of disposing of the used bodies
by feeding them to his pigs. It is the
largest serial killing in my nation’s
history.
My friend knew some of the victims,
and knows many of their families. She
believes it is a miracle that she herself
was not picked up and killed, as she
strolled the same streets many of the
victims did.
My friend is free now. Free of drugs,
free of prostitution, free to live the
fullness of life God has for her. It
hasn’t been easy for her. The
temptations are still there, and for
a long time she held on to the idea
that prostitution in and of itself wasn’t
wrong, we just had to make it safer
for the girls.
She is now in a place of wanting to
see prostitution ended. She still goes
out on the street most nights, delivering
soup and sandwiches she makes for the
girls outside, and is trying to rescue
as many of her friends as she can. When
someone offers her “rock”
(crack cocaine) she responds by saying,
“I already have a Rock! His name
is Jesus!” When someone asks her
(and they still do) how much she costs,
she responds, “You can’t
afford me. I’ve already been bought
by Jesus.”
She has even come to a place of forgiving
the serial killer on trial right now.
Not on behalf of the other victims or
families, she can’t do that. But
on her own behalf, for the wrong he
did her and others in assuming that
these women had no worth. She wants
to get into the prison and run a Bible
Study for him.
This woman has experienced full salvation,
body, soul and spirit. And when I hang
out with her now, and see all the life
and freedom she has, I can’t help
but mourn for a society that had previously
viewed her as having no worth other
than as the object of someone else’s
lust.
And there are so many other women and
children out there being viewed in that
same way, in my city and around the
world – over 2 million people
are trafficked yearly. That can be an
awfully daunting figure, and the victims
can often come across as faceless and
nameless. But when you get to know one
person, and see them as a person, created
and beloved of God, then you can no
longer simply sit back and think of
human trafficking as someone else’s
issue.
Please, join the fight against the evil
of human trafficking.
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