Her story had left me in tears. I think the downside of being an avid reader is the vivid imagination. And that imagination managed to paint a movie of her life in my mind. Yet I don't regret reading the story or anything like that. I only experienced second hand what she had experienced first hand. Even now, thoughts of what she had to go through make me cry.
Click here to read a milder version of her story [can't find the article I read :/ ]
After this, I watched Michelle Phan's latest video, Remember The Girl.
And through this, I got introduced to the love146 organization. Here is an official statement from their page:
In 2002, the co-founders of Love146 traveled to Southeast Asia on an exploratory trip to determine how they could serve in the fight against child sex trafficking. In one experience, a couple of our co-founders were taken undercover with investigators to a brothel where they witnessed children being sold for sex. This is the story that sparked our abolition movement.“We found ourselves standing shoulder to shoulder with predators in a small room, looking at little girls through a pane of glass. All of the girls wore red dresses with a number pinned to their dress for identification.They sat, blankly watching cartoons on TV. They were vacant, shells of what a child should be. There was no light in their eyes, no life left. Their light had been taken from them. These children…raped each night… seven, ten, fifteen times every night. They were so young. Thirteen, eleven… it was hard to tell. Sorrow covered their faces with nothingness. Except one girl. One girl who wouldn’t watch the cartoons. Her number was 146. She was looking beyond the glass. She was staring out at us with a piercing gaze. There was still fight left in her eyes. There was still life left in this girl……All of these emotions begin to wreck you. Break you. It is agony. It is aching. It is grief. It is sorrow. The reaction is intuitive, instinctive. It is visceral. It releases a wailing cry inside of you. It elicits gut-level indignation. It is unbearable. I remember wanting to break through the glass. To take her away from that place. To scoop up as many of them as I could into my arms. To take all of them away. I wanted to break through the glass to tell her to keep fighting. To not give up. To tell her that we were coming for her…”Because we went in as part of an ongoing, undercover investigation on this particular brothel, we were unable to immediately respond. Evidence had to be collected in order to bring about a raid and eventually justice on those running the brothel. It is an immensely difficult problem when an immediate response cannot address an emergency. Some time later, there was a raid on this brothel and children were rescued. But the girl who wore #146 was no longer there. We do not know what happened to her, but we will never forget her. She changed the course of all of our lives.”-Rob Morris
President & Co-founderWe have taken her number so that we remember why this all started. So that we must tell her story. It is a number that was pinned to one girl but that represents the millions enslaved. We wear her number with honor, with sorrow, and with a growing hope. Her story can be a different one for so many more.Love is the foundation of our name because it is our motivating drive to end the trafficking and exploitation of children. Martin Luther King Jr. said, “Justice at its best is love correcting everything that stands against love.” We hold that to be true.
love146US YouTube page ~ the stories
I hope, you too, have been inspired to support this great cause. I know I have been. Already, I am planning an event or two for my college to spread awareness. I implore you to do the same at your school, college, neighborhood, whatever. Save innocence.
-Captain Kaelyn
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