Hagar

Today was intense. Heartbreaking. Beautiful. Difficult. Precious. We visited Hagar International, the NGO I mentioned in one of my last few posts. This is truly an amazing organization. Hagar began in the mid-90's by a Swiss man named Pierre Tami. It began as a shelter, but soon realized that they needed to address they reasons why women were in circumstances where they needed shelters in the first place: domestic violence. Since then, it has become a bustling shelter, an education center, and a place for employment opportunities. Before I get too much further into the organization, let me just explain the organization's name.


Hagar was the servant/slave of Abraham and Sarah. Sarah was barren and so Abraham slept with Hagar in order to give his wife a child. Sarah got extremely jealous when Hagar became pregnant (with a son that would be named Ishmael) and so she turned her out on her own. The word "hagar" means escape. It applies to foreigners (Hagar was an Egyptian slave for Israelites), slaves/servants, single mothers, the homeless, those who have met God, those who have tried to abandon their children out of destitution, and those whose cries have been heard by God. According to the organization, they accept any women who meet this criteria. Many Cambodian women have this very story.


Emelita Goddard gave an excellent presentation during the first part of the day. She explained that many of the current society's parents were children during the Pol Pot regime, and as such, have not had good parenting role models. Another huge factor in domestic violence is drinking, gambling, and too much time with too little to occupy it. In fact, 20% of women miss daily work because of domestic violence. Another heartbreaking reason that so much domestic violence occurs is the tradition of "Chbap Srey," basically the code of women's conduct which says...


-- You don't talk about your home-life, even if their is abuse going on - that is a family matter.
-- There must be no intervention by outside parties even in terrible situations.

-- The wife must e subservient to the husband, no matter what.



Because of this, domestic violence is commonplace and almost accepted. Emelita (Melit) also said that rape is becoming a bigger problem -- in schools, in the countryside. Not just rape, but increasingly violent rape, gang rape, and the rape of young children. There is a saying (relating back to issues of purity/stigmatization and gender inequality) that says "men are gold, women are cloth," meaning if you drop gold on the ground and it gets dirty, you can wipe it off and it will be the same; if you drop cloth on the ground, it is stained and different forever. Following that same mentality, once women are raped, their value is lowered and the sex trade becomes an even more viable option. (To clarify quickly... Trafficking always involves a third party; the girl/family is tricked by the middleman into joining the trade or following them with the promise of money, only to be sold to a brothel and kept as a prisoner. Commercial sex refers to prostitution, which is often done by choice. Immorality is present in both cases, as are the cultural beliefs and many of the reasons for their existence.)


More and more, people are reporting rape, but often, only the rape of children is reported because rape inside of a relationship is culturally allowed. Also, many women fear reporting rape because of the intense shame attached; especially when they will go through a long long process, spend a lot of money, and most likely lose the case. When the rapist has more money than the victim (which is usually the case) officials are easily paid off and the case is dropped. How terrifying to not be able to trust the legitimacy of law enforcement and the judicial system?


Cambodia is a source, destination, and transit country for trafficking, with people coming from all over the world to participate in the sex trade and women and children being taken from all over Southeast Asia. Melit told us how so much of the sex trade is fueled by destitution. People are so poor, that selling one's children to a brothel often seems like a good idea. I cannot even imagine (strange, I just noticed -- as I sit at the bar/cafe next door to my hotel -- that "Imagine" by John Lennon is being played somewhere nearby) the level of destitution that drives a mother to send her daughter with a stranger for a little bit of cash.


Melit also told us the story of a cook who was making about $100 dollars/month, a pretty good wage for a Cambodian with little education. She left cooking, however, because she could make $400 per virgin girl sold to a brothel.


Amidst all the horror, Melit told us that things are looking better. More and more girls are going to school, the cbap srey is constantly being challenged, and the social sciences are becoming more common school subjects.


A few facts about Hagar and the people it helps...
-- 1994-2007 Hagar has helped 1,103 young girls and mothers and 2,069 children.
-- Over 50% are 15-25 and it's getting younger
-- 55% have had no formal education - most cannot even read
-- now, many of these women have dreams of their own and are planning hopeful and realistic futures.


Hagar's 5-year plan
--Rescue
--Recovery
--Rehabilitation
--Reintegration
--Resilience


Hagar Businesses - Employment Opportunities and Funds
--Hagar Soya - a beverage company
--Hagar Catering - we ate at the restaurant today for lunch and it was great!
--Hagar On Time - clothing/accessory company (go to the site and buy stuff - it's really cute!)


In case I haven't mentioned it, Hagar is a Christian organization (hopefully you got that from the name...:) ). The staff is almost entirely Christian, they teach Christian beliefs, have worship bands and songs, and attend church every Sunday (staff and residents). A big part of the girls' recovery comes from learning about who they are in God's eyes, that they were created specifically by God, in His image, and that they are not just a new version of themselves in a different life (Buddhists believe in reincarnation; most of Cambodia is Buddhist).


Hagar also has what is called Career Pathways, a program designed to prepare the members for employment and future self-sufficiency. They learn communication, confidence, work ethic, budgeting, skills, and have become well-equipped for work around Cambodia.


And now... our time with the girls.


We went to the children's shelter later in the afternoon where a group of about 25 girls performed an expressive Cambodian dance for us, a dance that they helped to create. The dance told the story of a lotus plant. Lotus plants grow in dirty water, but develop tall strong stalks to rise above the muck and produce beautiful flowers. In the dance, the beautiful lotus gets eaten by flies and snails until it falls apart and dies. Later, fish swim up and put the pieces back together and, once again, the lotus is an amazing and strong plant. The girls told us that this is their story. They are lotus plants, who, through Hagar, have once again become strong and beautiful, been lifted above the dirt.


The dance was beautiful. The girls were beautiful. Sue (another one of Hagar's employees), however, told us some ugly facts about the girls. They were aged 8-15. About half of them had been trafficked for sex, the other half were victims of rape, by family, neighbors, strangers. Three of them are mothers. Three were raped so brutally that they will never be able to have children. One girl came to the shelter after having been anally raped so badly that she needed a colostomy bag; she came to the shelter with just the tube sticking out of her body, no bag attached. None of these girls looks over the age of 13. The 12-year olds look 9, the 8-year old 5. None should have endured what they have. Their childhoods have been brutally taken from them.


After the dance, we went to Cambodia's equivalent of McDonald's or Burger King to get ice cream cones. The women told us it was a real treat for the girls. On the bus ride over (some of our group rode in the back of the Hagar truck with the girls, while the rest of us rode in our mini-bus with the rest of the girls), we made small talk, laughed, and smiled a lot--once you use the few phrases that you know they will understand, "What's your name," "How old are you," "You are pretty," you have to get much more creative to surpass the language barrier. The girls riding on the truck told us that they sang with the Hagar girls. The Hagar girls would sing one worship song in Cambodian and the Westmont girls would have to sing 3 back in response. As it turns out, many of them knew the same worship songs and would sing along together--some in Khmer and the rest in English. How beautiful to hear! I'm sure I would have been crying had I been in the truck with them. It's amazing to see how God works through people and can bring such different cultures together through worship.


At the burger place, we ate our ice creams, took lots of pictures, and made silly faces. The majority of the time was spent giggling, taking pictures and smiling. Jacqueline had a bit of a different experience. Chaunty, a local Cambodian who actually got his bachelor's degree from Chapman College, translated some of the girls' stories for Jacqueline. They told her how they were raped by their fathers, cousins, neighbors, and stepfathers. It was really amazing to hear how comfortable these tiny girls were with telling strangers about what brought them to Hagar.

No one should experience what these precious girls have. They have had their childhoods stolen from them. At the same time, they are hopeful, smiling, and friendly. It's truly amazing to see what Hagar has been able to do with and for them.

Well, this has been quite a long post and I really hope all of you have stayed interested and lasted until the end. This is really an issue that needs attention, way more than it's getting. This is not just an Asian issue either. The slave trade exists because there is a demand. The demand--though largely local--comes from around the world. Wealthy, successful foreigners take a big part in this terrible practice. As I already said, one dollar goes a long way. Many of the people traveling here for sex can easily drop a couple hundred to rape children. And they do it.

I'm going to end with something Sue told us today...

"Feed what angers you. Feed it until you have that Popeye moment, the moment where you stand up and say that you have had enough and that you will not take anymore. Feed it until you are angry enough to do something about it."

I'm sure you have been angered by the things I have told you. Terrible things that exist far too much in our supposedly modern world. Get angry. Get involved.

Pace e Amore.

L