“He asked for a service, but that was just his way to get into my room. “I knew something was wrong as soon as I closed the door. He started to look through my things. He wanted to see if I had money hidden in there. I was afraid of what was happening, but I […]
How much do we love her? How many of you remember L? Shot 7 times and left for dead. I can never say it too often… she’s a walking miracle. (see 2017 story here) Pandemic life has been very hard on her. The tiny squatter village she lives in means there are no sales at […]
This blog first appeared as a series of seven posts in Tamar’s Hope private Facebook group. For permission to join please click here. Post 5 Sitting on the front step she suddenly burst into tears. That makes three times I’ve seen her cry. It’s becoming a habit! Turns out, she, like many of the women […]
This blog first appeared as a series of seven posts in the Tamar’s Hope private Facebook group. For permission to join please click here. Post 1 When we found her in February, she was a different person. Something huge had shifted in her life. Y has always been one of the most accepting of the […]
We sat for hours on her tiny single bed. It served as chairs, cutting board, ironing board and work station. Two years ago we had sat together in La Puerta when she asked if I thought she was capable of learning to use a sewing machine. Classes started that day. She loved it so much […]
They call her Skinny. Guatemalans are blunt and not entirely politically correct in their use of nicknames. We’ve known her for five years. On our first day visiting La Linea she sat on her little plastic chair next to her room and the public urinal that perfumed the air around her. She looked so frail, […]
It’s been almost five years. We’ve walked these tracks and visited the rooms that trap hundreds of women so many times we can’t even begin to count. We’ve learned so much and changed so much. We’ve discovered depths of love we didn’t know we were capable of. We’ve lost dear friends to murder and have […]
Her family called her Chispita (little spark), but to us she was Yocelin. The first time we met her, she sat huddled over a chair, her tongue pointed in concentration as she frantically coloured a sheet of paper. What she produced with that fierce effort was heartbreaking – a toddler scrawl without definition or plan. […]
“The women you work with…are any of them trafficked?” We get asked this question a lot. Way too often. I just don’t like the T word. The issue of human trafficking is horrifying, and all of a sudden, it’s getting a lot of media attention. Imagine a trade in human lives, sold for exploitation. It’s […]
Just over a year ago C. decided that she just couldn’t stand to be on La Linea for another moment. On a Saturday afternoon at the end of January, she walked away from 16 years of prostitution without even bothering to unlock the door of her little room. It was the start of an amazing […]