Neophyte in Thailand (part 2)

I sit in a brothel in Bangkok watching the girls, wearing numbers like cattle, moving on stage waiting for a customer to choose them. Some young girls stare blankly at the ground. Some vapid women are too ashamed to look us in the face. Other girls are too far gone on drugs to be fully responsive. Drugs serve a dual purpose; traffickers administer drugs to maintain control, while the girls consume them to numb themselves to unwanted reality. Sandy Kirkpatrick and I sat watching the girls looking for signs of brutality and other evidence of trafficking. If detected and confirmed we would provide the girl with the phone number for Nightlight, an organization in Bangkok providing assistance to facilitate escape and offering alternative employment making jewelry. Nightlight also provides emotional and spiritual counseling and life skills training to women seeking to escape the devastating cycle of prostitution, whether forced or not. The commercial sex industry is the second largest criminal business in the world and to interfere by offering an escape to cash cows is risky and dangerous. We must be as clandestine as possible. When I approach one of the girls she mistakes my motives and calls 2 other girls over to us as she is already occuppied with another table. One of these girls is so far strung out on drugs that she is unaware of her actions, the other girl fondles me and asks if she can go back to my room. They do not appear to be underage and we are unable to communicate due to the first girls incoherance and the fact that neither one of them speak English. Sandy and I decide to leave and go to another location.
A few blocks away is a hotel that specifically caters to the desires of Middle Eastern men. Women are trafficked here from Uzbekistan because their pale skin and dark hair is preferred by the "Johns". The lobby is a bustling place occupied predominantly by these men and Sandy, with her blonde hair and blue/green eyes and I stick out like sore thumbs. Sandy has previously visited this location and tells me that the trafficked girls are kept in the basement. We surreptitouslly slip down the unguarded stairwell. Waiting at the bottom of the staircase are about 15-20 women, all wearing numbers and little else, sitting behind a glass wall. They are on display like caged animals waiting for a john to choose them for sex. Most of the women look away and try to hide their faces when they see us. My eyes meet one of the girls eyes and I can see her soul is plagued with dispair, shame, and fear. I am overcome by a whirlwind of emotions which consist of fury, sadness, sympathy and helplessness. I am especially sad knowing I can do little about the situation. A man sitting at a desk at the foot of the stairs asks us what we are doing in the basement. I have to think fast and ask if I can find the lady's room down here. He harshly replies and we are hastily escorted back up to the lobby. Once up in the lobby we are followed around by security. I sit there livid and in a state of shock. I want to cry. Sandy tries to console me and get me to verbalize what I'm feeling.
Article to be continued by Nina Mone Williams