I never thought I would be sitting at a table full of women comparing their daily quotas of paid sex. Linda, a former top madam in Australia, who once grossed $30,000 per week, remarked that in her days on the street the "girls" serviced around five clients a day; now they have to accommodate ten to fifteen. Juanita, from Costa Rica, looked shocked. "Fifteen? I did a hundred a day, on a double shift! The men lined up outside the door and we had only ten minutes with each one."

I was attending a conference of 45 Christian groups involved in ministry to women in prostitution, with 30 countries represented. Ostensibly, I was interviewing the ministry leaders, but they mostly stayed silent. Instead, former prostitutes themselves told heart-breaking stories of degradation and transformation.

Juanita, for example, was sold into sexual slavery by her own mother at the age of four. While other children went to school, she worked in a brothel, earning for her mother the higher rates paid for young girls. Eventually she had two children of her own, whom her mother took from her. With no education and no other skills, she continued working in the brothel, in the process becoming addicted to alcohol and cocaine.

One day a customer grew enraged when she wouldn't do what he asked, and hit her on the head with a baseball bat. She lay in a hospital bed, desperate. "I got on my knees and pled with God. I wanted somehow to escape prostitution, to become a real mother to my children. And God gave me a vision. He said, 'Look for Rahab Foundation.' I didn't even know the word Rahab." She found the organization's phone number, though, and a few days later Juanita showed up, bruised and bandaged, at Rahab's door.

"I need help," she said, sobbing. "I'm dying. I can't take it anymore." A kindly woman named Mariliana took her in and told her about God's love. "I couldn't believe the hope on Mariliana's face," Juanita recalled. "She smiled and hugged me. She gave me a clean bed, flowers in the room, and a promise that no men would harass me. She taught me how to be a real mother, and now I am studying a trade to live for the glory of God."

Of the estimated 25 million women who work in prostitution worldwide, the vast majority, like Juanita, come from developing countries. Some are bought by traffickers in places like India, Thailand, the Philippines, and the former Soviet Union, and installed as virtual slaves in strip clubs and brothels in Asia and in Western Europe. The United Nations estimates that 4 million women are trafficked worldwide each year, more than a million of them younger than 18.

Sandra, from Australia, told a story more typical of wealthy countries. "I knew I was beautiful because in school guys always wanted to sleep with me. So why not charge for it? I signed on with a pimp, and for six months it was great. He put me in a nice hotel, and I had more money than I could imagine.

"But then I got addicted to drugs and alcohol. I cannot tell you how unutterably lonely I began to feel. I sat on my bed and watched tv all day until the men came in at night. I had no friends, no family. I lived with a deep sense of shame. For a solid year I never got out of bed, I was so depressed."

Sandra found her way to Linda's House of Hope, a Christian organization run by the former top madam. "I'm still struggling, after six months off the streets. I got addicted to the power and money, as well as the drugs. Yet I know what God wants for me. I need to be healed."

A tiny woman from Thailand, where a sex trade flourishes infamously, spoke next. "I know. I was such a sex addict that—I am so ashamed—I tried to rape my own sons." She paused to catch her voice. "It isn't easy to be healed."

No, not easy, but possible. In the next few days I heard remarkable stories of healing and transformation. The very names of the ministries hold out a promise of hope: New Life Center, Scarlet Cord, Project Rescue, Lost Coin, Hagar's Project. I asked the group how many prostitutes would honestly like to get out of the business. "All of them," they replied.

"I tell you the truth, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God ahead of you," Jesus announced to the religious authorities of his day. After puzzling over that provocative statement, C. S. Lewis concluded, "Prostitutes are in no danger of finding their present life so satisfactory that they cannot turn to God: The proud, the avaricious, the self-righteous, are in that danger." After hearing stories from women who have come out of prostitution, I had to agree.

Originally published in Christianity Today, January 1, 2005.

Copyright © 2005 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information.

Related Elsewhere

Other Christianity Today articles on ministry to those enslaved for sex work includes:

Confronting Moral Horror | It's a witness even the most jaded find impressive. (Feb. 04, 2004)

Weblog: International Justice Mission Gets Notice and Results | Dateline NBC, Forbes, and others show the undercover work of ministry that fights sexual slavery. (Jan. 27, 2004)

The Hidden Slavery | Each year, two million women and children worldwide have sex with strangers only because someone kidnaps them and threatens to kill them. You may have passed some of these victims on the street. (Nov. 14, 2003)

Finding the 'Real God' | An interview with a sex trafficking survivor. (Nov. 14, 2003)

Human Commodities | The grisly business of trafficking in fetal body parts may soon face Congressional hearings. (March 6, 2000)

Christians Divide Over Sex-Worker Law | New Zealand considers decriminalizing prostitution. (Aug. 31, 2001)

Campaigner Says Churches Ignore Child Abuse | President of ECPAT accuses clergy and church workers of perpetrating child abuse. (Aug. 30, 2000)

The U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime has information on human trafficking on its web site.

The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children has information on sexual exploitation on its web site.

The Salvation Army's Initiative Against Sexual Trafficking has information about its activities on its web site.

The Office on Violence Against Women has information on the Trafficking Victims' Protection Act of 2000.

Adults Saving Kids has a web site with information on prostitution and sex trafficking.

A Message on Commercial Sexual Exploitation is available on the ECLA web site.

The Coalition Against Trafficking in Women International has posted "10 Reasons for Not Legalizing Prostitution" on its web site.

The International Justice Mission has information about its work fighting sex slavery.

Hagar's Project has information about its work with Cambodian women.

Previous Yancey columns for Christianity Today include:

Hope for Abraham's Sons | What will it take for us to overcome this violent world? (Oct. 27, 2004)

Forgetting God | Why decadence drives out discipline. (Aug. 30, 2004)

Discreet and Dynamic | Why, with no apparent resources, Chinese churches thrive. (June 28, 2004)

Doubting the Doomsayers | Thank God not everything they say is true. (April 30, 2004)

Cry, The Beloved Continent | Don't let AIDS steal African children's future. (March 04, 2004)

The Colonizers | The best preachers have challenged earth to become more like heaven. (Jan. 16, 2004)

The Leprosy Doctor | Paul Brand showed how to serve others sacrificially and emerge with joy. (Oct. 23, 2003)

Going It Alone | We should take heed when much of the world says it distrusts us. (July 2, 2003)

God of the Maggies | In broken sinners, Jesus saw not their past but their future. (April 25, 2003)

Perestroika of the Spirit | In Russia, the vocabulary of faith needs interpreters. (March 5, 2003)

Jesus' Sword | Longing for peace in tumultuous times. (Jan. 7, 2002)

Guilt Good and Bad | The early warning signs. (Nov. 11, 2002)

God's Funeral | What will keep faith from nearly disappearing in America? (Sept. 3, 2002)

Sheepish | Feeling autonomous and proud? Then ponder the lives of sheep. (July 2, 2002)

Servant in Chief | Jimmy Carter's journey from the White House to building houses.(May 28, 2002)

Why Do They Hate Us? | How to turn the Baywatch syndrome into the Jesus syndrome. (March 27, 2002)

Yancey's Where is God When it Hurts, Special Edition, Soul Survivor: How My Faith Survived the Church, and his latest book, Rumors of Another World, are available on Christianbook.com.

Read more from 'Missions and Social Action'

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