Escaping India’s child rape industry
Galen C. Dalrymple writes at patheos.com about a trip to Bangalore, India, to research the sex trafficking problem:
… When Mary was just 5 years of age, she would be awakened by her parents during the wee small hours of the morning darkness and by 4 a.m. she was out trying her best to catch rats. She wasn’t being sent to catch and kill them because they were pests, but because they represented a potential source of income for her parents who would sell the meat from the rats she caught for others to eat. The most notorious of those who would eat rats are called “mushars” or “rat eaters.” They represent the lowest of the low, the bottom rung of Dalits [the lowest, “untouchable” level of Hinduism’s caste system].
There was just one problem. Mary wasn’t very good at catching rats, no matter how hard she tried. She just couldn’t catch enough rats to help sustain the family. So her parents sold her as a prostitute…at 5 years of age. They needed the money. Mary, after all, was just a Dalit girl.
For over a decade, Mary was a part of the sex trafficking of young girls (especially prevalent with Dalit girls) in India. … Finally, after those interminably long years, Mary was rescued by Operation Mobilization/India and the Dalit Freedom Network. She was taken into a safe, loving place where she would be fed, clothed, and given medical treatment for her diseases. She was sent to the Good Shepherd School, which teaches not from a Hindu worldview, but from a Christian worldview, where she learned that she had immeasurable worth because she was made in the very image of God, that God loves and cherishes her. She learned English and a trade. Now, at 18 years of age, she was ready again to go out into the world, not to catch rats or be a sexual object for child rapists, but to earn a respectable living as a contributing member of society.
At the graduation ceremony we attended that night, Mary was luminous. After the ceremony was over, she moved through the crowd to find her parents – the ones who had sold her into sexual slavery years earlier.
Read the rest of this very compelling story by clicking here.
Multiply Justice 
Dear friend,
I came upon your post because it was extremely similair to the last post I made on my own blog. Unfortunatly, for the young girl in Sri Lanka, whom I wrote about, the story ended in a far more tragic way. Reading about Mary brings great joy to my heart that things can be done to counter the mistreatment of children in South East Asia. I would really like to learn more about how to get involved but the link under child exploitation in your blog doesn’t seem to be functioning. I don’t know how much I can do, maybe I can only spread the word about Mary but I will do it with all of my heart.
Keith
It must have been a transient problem. The link for Love146 (http://www.love146.org) seems to working now. If you still can’t access it, you can contact them via e-mail at info [at] love146 [dot] org.
Problems can seem so enormous, so many people who need help, so many who don’t receive it in time, but I keep reminding myself that each one is precious in God’s sight, so we must do what we can for those we can help. God has given each of us the ability to make a difference, whether it’s hands-on with a suffering soul, spreading the word about the need and how to help, or praying in solitude before Almighty God on behalf of all the souls who are crying in the darkness. It all makes a difference. Colossians 3:23 urges us, “Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart ….”