In 2002, the co-founders of Love 146 travelled to South East Asia on an exploratory trip to determine how they could serve in the fight against child sex trafficking. In one experience, a couple of our co-founders were taken undercover with investigators to a brothel, where they witnessed children being sold for sex. This was their experience. This is the story that changed our lives.
"We found ourselves
standing shoulder to shoulder with predators in a small room, looking at
little girls through a pane of glass. All of the girls wore red dresses
with a number pinned to their dress for identification. They sat,
blankly watching cartoons on TV. They were vacant, shells of what a
child should be. There was no light in their eyes, no life left. Their
light had been taken from them. These children...raped each night...
seven, ten, fifteen times every night. They were so young. Thirteen,
eleven… it was hard to tell. Sorrow covered their faces with
nothingness. Except one girl. One girl who wouldn’t watch the cartoons.
Her number was 146. She was looking beyond the glass. She was staring
out at us, with a piercing gaze. There was still fight left in her eyes.
There was still life left in this girl...
"...All of these emotions
begin to wreck you. Break you. It is agony. It is aching. It is grief.
It is sorrow. The reaction is intuitive, instinctive. It is visceral. It
releases a wailing cry inside of you. It elicits gut-level indignation.
It is unbearable. I remember wanting to break through the glass. To
take her away from that place. To scoop up as many of them as I could
into my arms. To take all of them away. I wanted to break through the
glass to tell her to keep fighting. To not give up. To tell her that we
were coming for her…"
“Because we went in as part of an ongoing, undercover investigation on
this particular brothel, we were unable to immediately respond. Evidence
had to be collected in order to bring about a raid, and eventually
justice on those running the brothel. It is an immensely difficult
problem when an immediate response cannot address an emergency. Some
time later, there was a raid on this brothel and children were rescued.
But the girl who wore #146 was no longer there. We do not know what
happened to her, but we will never forget her. She changed the course
of all of our lives."
-Rob Morris, President and Co-founder
We have taken her number so that we remember why this all started. So that we must tell her story. It is a number that was pinned to one girl, but that represents the millions enslaved. We wear her number with honor, with sorrow, and with a growing hope. Her story can be a different one for so many more.
