My heart hurts.

Wow. What a fabulous, horrible book.

Here is a quick summary of Lakshmi's ending (WARNING: Spoiler):
Lakshmi has become a desensitized monster. She is the second most experienced girl there, as many of the other women have left, unable to work because of their diseases. She goes to work, roping in as many man as she can, willing to do anything to pay off her debt and leave the "Happiness House." Soon she discovers that not a single rupee has actually gone to her family. Everything she has done was for nothing. A strange American man comes to her room, but instead of sleeping with her he tells her of a clean place he can take her where the girls are happy. Lakshmi does not believe him, but when a second American comes later with photos of a clean, safe place, she decides to risk it. The Americans come back with the police to raid the Happiness House. Lakshmi, desperate for hope, leaves her friends and follows the Americans. Mumtaz (the horrible leader of the Happiness House) is arrested, and we assume that Lakshmi begins a new life.

One of Lakshmi's biggest struggles was deciding what reality to believe. She had been lied to in coming to the Happiness House; she had been lied to about how much she owed and where her money was going; She had been beaten, raped, drugged, diseased; She had trained herself to block out pain and she could not hope. How could she trust this American man? What if it was all another lie? My heart aches for Lakshmi as she battles between the certainty of the Happiness House and the hope of the American man. It takes the absolute desperation and the realization that she will never leave the Happiness House before she is willing to risk anything to get out.

It is fascinating and sickening to see Lakshmi's perspective and the way she has been so deceived. Right from the beginning of the book, I knew that Lakshmi's new job as a "maid" was actually a job as a prostitute. I knew she was ignorant to think she could ever earn her way out. I knew the women would get diseases from the men. But everything is new, and much more real to Lakshmi. I understand more now her motivation for boldly approaching the men and being willing to sleep with any one of them. I understand some of her fear at leaving with the American man and her helplessness in such a situation.

I think "Sold" has brought enlightenment to my naive mind in regards to the horrors that many people experience. Though of course I have heard statistics and stories of women in similar situations, "Sold" puts everything in perspective, through the eyes of a 13-year-old girl. I realize that I don't actually get it. I can never understand really how terrible it is. Girls are suffering in ways that are beyond my imagination. My heart hurts tonight.

This should not be normal.

It's a hundred pages later and I am sickened beyond expression by Lakshmi's reality. She began in desperate poverty, but life is drastically worse now and I wish so strongly that she could go back to the way it was. Lakshmi was sold by her stepfather, believing she would go to live in the city and work as a house maid to earn money for her family. Completely deceived, Lakshmi finds herself in the "Happiness House" where she soon learns she has been sold as a child prostitute. She is starved, beaten, drugged and forced to submit to every man who comes into her room. Things only get worse when she is no longer a virgin (not worth as much money) and must persuade the men herself to come and sleep with her if she wants to ever make enough money to leave. Even my best attempt to describe her pain and hopelessness would be a giant understatement. Really, I almost wish she would kill herself.

Here are some parts that shocked me as I read...not including many of the most obscene images:

"...no matter how often I wash
and scrub
and wash
and scrub,
I cannot seem to rinse the men from my body." (p. 129)



"'[Mumtaz] knows that once the women have children, they cannot leave. They will do whatever she asks, or be thrown out in the street.'
...The younger [children], like Jeena, are given special medicine so they can sleep under the bed while their mothers are with customers." (p. 145)



"Do whatever the customer asks of you, Shahanna says.
Otherwise he will beat you senseless.
Then he will do whatever he likes and leave without paying.

Always wash yourself with a wet rag after the man is finished...
...This will keep you from getting a disease...

...The Americans will try to trick you into running away, says Anita. Don't be fooled. They will shame you and make you walk naked through the streets.

If an old man is at the door, bat your eyelashes and act the part of a little girl, says Pushpa. He will pay extra for this...

...That new girl, the one in your old room, she says.
Yesterday morning Mumtaz found her hanging from the rafters." (p. 141 - 143)


I can hardly bear to read Lakshmi's story, just as she is hardly sure it is not just an impossible nightmare. One of the most difficult parts to read is seeing the way her misery and torture gradually becomes normal. She learns how to block out certain parts and talks about her experience objectively, as if it is all part of daily life. Rapes and whippings should not ever be part of anyone's schedule, but it is life for Lakshmi every day. I had to skim over the most graphic scenes and eventually set the book down, actually feeling a bit depressed.

Again, I am struck by how real Lakshmi's story is. Since beginning the book, I have done a bit of research to understand the human sex-trafficking in the world today. According to www.uri.edu, "The brothels of India hold between 100,000 and 160,000 Nepalese women and girls, 35 percent were taken on the false pretext of marriage or a good job." I am absolutely disgusted that such horrors occur in such enormous numbers. Even more shocking are the numbers of sex slavery in the United States. I knew that some prostitution went on here in the U.S., but I was not aware of what a large-scale business it is. As stated on Wikipedia (yes, go check out the sources yourself if you don't trust wikipedia), "The United States State Department estimates that 50,000 to 100,000 women and girls are trafficked each year in the United States...anywhere from 100,000 up to 300,000 American children are at risk of commercial sexual exploitation at any given time."

Though emotionally difficult to read, I so appreciate the value of "Sold" as an eye-opener to me. I am a safe, healthy, wealthy, naive girl in the suburbs of the 'Sha. I have an immensely limited ability to understand Lakshmi and hundreds of thousands of other girls' situations as child prostitutes. "Sold" has given me a tiny peek into their lives and a new compassion for and interest in their situations.


This is a link to "Not For Sale," a campaign to end human trafficking around the world. I think it offers some helpful information and maybe a few ideas on how to move from compassion to action:
http://www.notforsalecampaign.org/about/slavery/#rs_8

Lakshmi

I think if I said the word "Guatemala" even one more time, someone somewhere would roll their eyes at my near-obsession. It is obvious to probably my entire social network that I love the time I have spent getting to know the people in Guatemala City. The area I visit each summer is struggling with some severe poverty, and because of my experiences and friendships there, I have a passion for serving the poor around the world.

Therefore. My plan for this senior project is to have a theme along the lines of global poverty.

The first novel I chose to read is called "Sold" by Patricia McCormick. It is the story of a young teenage girl- Lakshmi- who is growing up in Nepal in desperate conditions with her mother, step-father, and baby brother. She survives first a terrible drought and then the overwhelming monsoons. Her step-father is an irresponsible gambler who consistently loses the little money they have. She is surviving in a male-dominated society with little to appreciate and much to envy, yet she carries herself with humbleness and optimism. Lakshmi is already an admirable character for whom I find myself sympathizing even in the first forty pages. 

The book is written in first person from Lakshmi's point of view in a fairly objective narration of her life. Every page or two begins with a new title, almost as in a diary or a set of poems. The author uses several shortened, "half" sentences to add to the bluntness. It is as if what she describes is thrown in my face rather than "painting a picture in my mind." When talking about all that her family has given up in order to survive she says:

"I watch for Ama on the path below, and wonder what will be lost next.

Later, when I see her climbing the hill to our hut, I know.

It is the joyful noise of her earrings.

And the proud set of her head." (p. 35)

Another time she talks of her ruined rice paddy next to her neighbor's proud rice crops:

"My stomach churns with something bitter. I do not know if it is hunger.

Or envy." (p. 34)

I was surprised at how attached I feel to Lakshmi having just begun the book. Ironically, the objectiveness actually adds to the emotion of Lakshmi's story. The idea of any 13-year-old speaking matter-of-fact-ly of her four younger brothers who did not live past their first year, or of her list of neighbors to whom her family owes money, is heart-wrenching. What she lives through is unimaginable, yet it is disgustingly normal for real girls her age in many parts of the world. 

One of the most striking parts in my mind was when Lakshmi reviewed her mother's advice on becoming a woman:

"Never look a man in the eye.

Never allow yourself to be alone with a man who is not family.

...

Once you are married, she says, you must eat your meal only after your husband has had his fill. Then you may have what remains.

...

If he turns to you in the night, you must give yourself to him, in the hopes that you will bear him a son.

If you have a son, feed him at your breast until he is four.

If you have a daughter, feed her at your breast for just a season, so that your blood will start again and you can try once more to bear a son.

If your husband asks you to wash his feet, you must do as he says, then put a bit of the water in your mouth.

...

'Simply to endure,' she says, 'is to triumph.'" (p. 15-16)

Based on the title and the summary, I know Lakshmi has not experienced the worst yet. Eventually she will be unknowingly sold into sex slavery. Already hurting for her, I can hardly bear to think her story is real for so many. I am a wealthy, unfairly advantaged American teenager, and I know many others like me. I wonder what we can do for the many others like Lakshmi.