I'm Not For Sale

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What can you buy with CAD$200 ？

For those who regard Money as god, everything has a price. Given the right price, you can have everything. What can you buy with CAD$200 in your city? Here in Vancouver, with $200 you can buy:

•  1X Landyachtz  skateboard, or
• 1X Michelin Latitude winter tire (not 4), or
• One month BC hydro bill in January, or
• 3-4 X Physiotherapy treatment, or
• Set dinner for 6 people in Chinese Restaurant, or
•  4 piano lessons for level 7

What you can buy with $200 gets lesser every year. I used to fill up my car 6 times up with that amount, but now， less than 4 times. Nevertheless, if you spend it strategically, $200 can forever change a life. In the dark side of Indonesia, one can get a girl from a family with $200 for two years and her life ended up in commercial sex market.

THE PRACTICE OF “IJON” IN INDONESIA

     Like much exploitations, children involvement in commercial sex also finds its origin in poverty. Poor families in rural area cannot make ends meet. A broker approaches them and offer a ‘loan’ up to two million rupiah (CAD$200). The family then repays the debt by bonding one of their children (usually a school age daughter) for a period of two years or more. The broker makes them believe their daughters will be trained as housemaids, workers, or movie stars and will be fine.

      They will not be fine. After training them makeup, dancing for a short period of time, they will be sold to commercial sex market in big cities. Brokers call these lost daughters “ayam(chicken) potong(chopped)” meaning new prostitutes carved off from families.

      Visiting tourists from Singapore, Malaysia, Western countries can buy a child in range of $200-$450. After the initial abuses, their prices drop significantly and they will be sent spirally downward in the commercial sex trade to bar, brothel, streets in tourist centers like Bali. Their most likely destiny is contracting HIV and sex related diseases and sent off to the lowest brothels along railway tracks. Most of them never have the chance to see their families again or they are too ashamed to face their parents and relatives. They are the “Lost Daughters.”（For details：http://www.insideindonesia.org/lost-daughters）. 

 In Indonesia, there are at least 40,000 children being exploited in this way.

     We might not have millions of dollars to rescue these 40,000 children. But we surely have 1X or 2X $200 to change the life of one or two girls.

     What if we have a team of local volunteers regularly visiting poor rural families who are more vulnerable to the “deal” from the broker. What if we make agreement with the families that with the same $200 we can take care of their daughters for 2 years. Now instead of being put in the evil hands of the brokers, they are now in good hands and receive education, care, career training…and the gospel.  The $200 coming from the broker will release hell on earth to them. But the same $200 from me and you will bring heaven on earth to them.  

$200/a girl’s life: for experiencing Heaven or hell.  Can you afford it?  I can.And I will.