Calgary Church – Join a movement….

The following post contains mature subject matter and was written by guest blogger Jenny Hong. This article is our response to raise awareness on the subject of human trafficking and Human Trafficking Awareness Day that launched for the first time January 11th, 2010. Calgary Church is formulating some interesting responses to this subject and related slavery issues, stay tuned for more info and ways you can connect in.

Taking a moment for Ping Pong Girls

This past Saturday I was at a birthday party, where I had the misfortune to bear witness to conversational dribble on a most terrible topic. I didn’t really know a lot of people at this gathering, and was making my best attempt to mingle when I found myself amidst a few friends chatting about their recent travels and associated misdemeanors – all of whom had made recent trips to Thailand.

Travel stories surrounding the beautiful country of Thailand nearly never or perhaps will only ever so briefly touch on its rich history and culture, ornate temples, and exquisite silk and handicrafts. Typically, people will boast about the delectable cuisine, breathtaking tropical vistas, cheap, luxurious beach front accommodations, and last but not least, toss in a few elephant-riding anecdotes. Nearly always, you can depend on a few good chuckles about encounters with transvestites, sometimes crassly articulated by homophobic dudes, whom might also make some stereotypical assertions to the effect of “I’d kill myself/the dude if I ever found out that I touched/did it with a lady boy/chick with dick.”

On this particular occasion, after the clichéd jabs at the lady boys (no pun intended) the conversation took a turn for the worst. Two of the girls started sharing about their experience attending a “Ping Pong” show, divulging plenty of grotesque details of what is essentially a p0rngraphic freak show. While these two grown women in their late 20s mindlessly rambled on, and on, I passively took in the words and let the generated imagery impress into my consciousness. At the time I did little to neither react nor respond to their ignorance, but since then I’ve considered deeply about why this conversation has burdened my soul.

Firstly, not to state the obvious, but it is morally repugnant to force women to perform a wide array of degrading acts that are potentially threatening to their bodies and no doubt, psyche. At best, these women “chose” this role due to a lack of suitable employment. Perhaps, it is a notch above prostitution. At worst, they were trafficked and coerced into such an activity, in addition to being forced to work as a prostitute; and worst yet, not a single baht might enter their pockets at the end of the evening. Secondly, I mourn over the essential obliteration of the divine connection between all humans as the onlookers’ gawk reduces the performer from that of a fellow human being – someone’s daughter, sister, mother – to that of it animate object, whose purpose now is purely to serve as a source of depraved entertainment. Thirdly, although most tourists are not in Thailand to take advantage of commercial sex, make no mistake, many non-sex tourists are still complicit in furthering the industry and its illegal elements, if their curiosity propels them to attend such shows.

Lastly, I can’t help but imagine what the performers are thinking as they look out into the audience at all the westerners and other non-Thai faces. What must they think of us? I wonder if it boggles their mind that people come from such far places and pay money to see them perform such demeaning, and bizarre acts. I wonder if they wonder why don’t we seem to care about their plight? I especially wonder if they hate us and hope that we would all go to hell. Even worse, what if we have so successfully stripped them of their beauty, humanness, and dignity that they no longer care about anything at all? What if they see and feel nothing, finding no meaning in the present and no hope for the future, because they indeed believe that their family, friends and the rest of the world has forgotten about them.

Other links about human trafficking:

A news story that provides details about the “Ping Pong” shows

http://pulitzercenter.typepad.com/untold_stories/2009/08/thailand-flesh-market.html

Some global and Canadian stats on human trafficking
http://www.worldvision.ca/ContentArchives/content-stories/Pages/human-trafficking-statistics-global-and-canadian.aspx

A story about the problem of human trafficking through Poipet, the border town in Cambodia that I lived and worked in 2007/08
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/world-vision/poipet-where-cambodians-a_b_214912.html