Hi! How are you? It’s been a while, right? You know when people post vague, cryptic messages on FB – the kind that make you think all kinds of drama is going on…they can’t say anything, but they want to make sure you know something serious is going down? Yeah, those posts. I’m not a […]
“Darling. Someone just killed Sulay!!!” It was 4.30pm last Thursday – and I was happily strolling through the luxury of a bookstore in Calgary. And even now, I can’t think about it without crying. How is it, do you think, that it can be so easy to end a life; to blot out all of […]
We called her Lorena. It’s not her name, of course, but for the majority of the world’s sexually exploited women, a fake name is a first line of defense – separating their true selves from the lie of the life they are forced to live. In these recent blogs I’ve used her first initial as […]
Today I got to hold L’s hand and tell her that people all over the world, people she will never meet, care enough about her to pay for her surgery and pray for her recovery. Although she can barely move, she was able to nod her head and give my hand a good squeeze. In […]
She’s one of the few women desperate enough…broken enough, to actually live on La Linea. Over the past six years she’s worked hard to turn the ugly little room into a home, but there’s not much she can do with bare walls and a tin roof. Last Christmas, she proudly showed off her sparkling, plastic […]
Let me tell you a little bit about Bea. Bea is amazing. Like, for reals. In a world where understated really isn’t a thing, Bea shines, no, glows, like a meltdown at a nuclear power plant. She’s a woman you can’t fail to notice. She’s loud – fairly bellowing her demands for coffee when a […]
“Tell me again, how old are your kids?” She beamed. She has a delicious smile. “Seven and five.” “That’s right. I remember now. You showed me pictures before I went away. They’re so cute.” “You remember, really?” Oh that smile. It’s a killer! We carried on talking and laughing while she waved other friends into […]
“My name is …” Words to bring tears to my eyes and make me weak with the honour of hearing such a simple, precious truth. The sex trade is all about illusion. The illusion that women are free to sell their bodies…that it’s empowering…that Prince Charming will walk through their door…that sex with strangers is […]
They call it “La Linea,” (the line) – a stretch of disused railway track that snakes its way across Guatemala City. It runs for miles, and thousands of people have scavenged sheet tin and garbage to build simple shacks along its twisting banks. The community we were looking for is in the heart of Guatemala […]