Sex: a structure of sin
by Justin D. Long
We all know sex is fun. And as Christians, we know it is created and blessed by God. But in a fallen world, perversions of the gift of touch God gave to mankind have created a massive structure of sin that the Church will have to deal with as part of its mission to bring the Gospel to the world.
Adultery
It can be called by many names, ranging from "affair" to "fling," and it is widespread around the world. It's rampant in Western nations, of course, depicted in films and caught on national TV. But the West isn't the only nation with the problem. Respondents to a study in China noted that adultery was widespread there, too. "All my friends have had affairs," one woman said. The cost: broken families, divorce, and the spread of sexually transmitted diseases.
Premarital sex
Likewise, premarital sex isn't just a Western problem. The same survey in China noted that 21% of that nation's poopulation--about 240 million people, nearly the same size as the TOTAL population of the United States--had engaged in sex before marriage. It's rampant in Africa, too: recently, the Wordview International Foundation of Kenya confronted the problem of immorality through a 28-minute video featuring Kenyan youths in a drama about a girl who gets pregnant and is turned out of the house by her parents and spurned by her boyfriend. In Zimbabwe, teenage girls in a family-planning clinic used dramatic skits to present the problem of unwed motherhood and abandoned infants during a visit by US first lady Hillary Clinton. The cost of premarital sex: abandoned babies, the spread of sexually-transmitted diseases, and skyrocketing abortion rates.
Pornography
There were some 50 million readers and users of pornography in 1990; that number has since grown dramatically. And now, pornography has gone high-tech: a variety of forms can be had for the cost of an Internet connection, including still images, movie clips, and now live videoconferencing. A news broadcaster recently did a special report on Internet pornography, interviewing with one of the girls who performed in live strip-tease shows on the Internet. She commented that it was much safer than prostitution, since one didn't actually directly interact with someone. The safety is only a sugar-coating; the 50 million viewers are scarring themselves. On average over 1,000 new images are posted weekly, including teen and child pornography, and new internet sites are offering exclusive memberships with access to archives of hundreds of thousands of images. The pornography industry rakes in better than $20 billion annually.
Prostitution
From the red-light districts of California to the streets of Europe to the bordellos of India to the ghettos of Thailand, there are 22 million prostitutes in the world. The vast majority (20 million) are female. There are 2 million prostitutes in Thailand alone: as many as 20 percent of Thai girls aged 11 to 17 may have been forced into the trade. At a recent meeting in Stockholm, representatives from 100 nations met in the world's first conference on global child prostitution, and the conference estimated that 1 million child prostitutes were active, particularly in the cities of Manila, Bombay and Bangkok.
Some prostitutes are inducted as part of religious ceremonies. Worshippers at a southern Indian temple still participate in a celebration involving child prostitution. Among the devotees to Yelamma is an illegal cult that chooses girls (many under 10) to become Devadasis (handmaidens of god) and dedicate them in secret ceremonies before bringing them to the temple to serve as prostitutes. Most of the girls brought into the Devadasi system will return home, but once they reach puberty they will be brought into the sex trade in cities like Bombay. There, sex can be bought for less than the price of a bottle of beer. The cult continues to exist despite the fact it is illegal; only with a recent campaign against it by the Indian Health Organization and the growing fear of AIDS has it begun to show signs of subsiding. The IHO estimates around 1,000 girls are dedicated each year, down from 7,000 per year in the late 1980s.
Hundreds of thousands of teenage girls aged 9-16 from Asia are obtained by professional recruiters who lure them to the cities with promises of jobs--by some estimates, as many as 10,000 per year, making it the most active slave traffic in the world. Chiang Rai, about 480 miles north of the Thai-Burma-Laos "Golden Triangle" region, is one of the largest markets for procuring prostitutes. "Agents" pay their parents a large sum of money to bring the girls to cities as bonded laborers. A few of them voluntarily chose prostitution to escape poverty in the mountains: they don't know the risks of getting sick and being confined in brothels as prisoners. Most, however, are underaged: sold or cheated into the sex trade. They are sold into prostitution in Bombay brothels, where they eventually catch "the Bombay illness" (AIDS) and are sent home. Depending on her beauty, a girl sells for US$185 to 550--a price lower than that of a buffalo, and slightly higher than that of a video player. Anu Tamang--now 21, thin, pale, brown-eyed--is afraid of coming back home: "I'm like a damaged egg, nobody wants me."
As a consequence of this sexual slavery, AIDS is beginning to hit the Hymalaian region as well. Prostitutes are thrown out of brothels once they become feverish and develop the external signs of sickness. Hundreds of these girls head back home in a pitiful state, but they are seldom accepted. Nepali press refer to these girls as "the rotten merchandise from India." Dura Chimire, president of a humanitarian organization in Nepal, said "Nobody wants to speak about the issue, not even girls' families. There are parents who sold their daughters, and husbands who get rid of their young wives."
The story of Geeta (30) shows the hate and distrust these girls must face when they come back. Being a victim of pneumonia and diarrhea as a consequence of AIDS, she was too sick to offer her services, so she was fired from the brothel. She looked for the man who had sold her as a prostitute at Katmandu, and she found him, but he beat her and abandoned her for dead. The Nepalese press told her story in such a way that, when she recovered enough to return to her home in Melanchi, a group of Tamang stopped her from entering the village. Her mother begged her to return to Katmandu, to avoid giving her parents the shame of having a daughter who had caught the "prostitutes' illness." Geeta stubbornly refused to leave. Today, her health is deteriorating, and her possibilities to defeat AIDS are nonexistent. In Nepal, the average yearly income is under US$185. For her, expensive medicines are compltely out of reach.
Worse, the girls are younger each time. Two small girls from Bombay, aged 7 and 15, were handed over to Katmandu police: victims of a growing superstition that men who suffer from AIDS and other venereal diseases will be cured if they sleep with a virgin. Maya was only eight when her cousin sold her. "They gave me hormone shots so that my breasts swelled". One day, the madame entered her room and started to make up her face. "A man came in and forced me to have sexual intercourse with him," recalls the girl. "I fought, but five women from the house blocked my arms and legs". Now she's 13 and already has the AIDS virus. Her anger comes out suddenly: "Men? I'd like to kill them, cut their [...] off."
AIDS
The Nepal story touches on the big problem, which we've discussed before: sexually transmitted diseases, with an especial emphasis on AIDS. More than 3 million people worldwide were infected with the AIDS virus last year, bringing the total number of the infected to 23 million. The United Nations and the World Health Organization estimate that 8,500 people get the virus every day -- including 1,000 children. Over the 15 years since the discovery of AIDS, some 6.5 million people have died of it. The cost of the much-heralded new 15-pill treatment -- $10,000 to $16,000 annually -- leaves it out of reach for most of the poor world.
In India, the Indian Missions Association notes that over 2% of the pregnant women in Bombay are infected with HIV. According to an article in TIME magazine, there is a 261% increase in AIDS in south and southeast Asia and a 658% increase in east Asia and the Pacific since 1992.
A recent news article outlined another problem India has. New Delhi is home to several thousand sex workers, who charge about US$2 to "entertain a client" and make about US$10 a day. The president of the Prostitutes Welfare Association told newswire that the condom supply in New Delhi ran out back in August 1996--leaving nearly 10,000 workers vulnerable to sexually transmitted diseases. (In India, condoms cannot be bought; they are distributed by the government.) Many of the prostitutes have already tested positive for AIDS. A project officer blamed the erratic supply of condoms on administrative problems; manufacturers say the government has not placed any fresh orders. Free distribution began in 1992 as part of the AIDS-control program; more than 180,000 condoms are supplied monthly to nearly 100 brothels in the city's red-light district. The current crisis may lead to an epidemic of AIDS: more than 30,000 visit brothels every day without protection. According to the article in Time magazine, researchers estimate that by 2000 anywhere from 15 to 50 million people could be HIV positive. Half the prostitutes in Bombay are already infected; doctors report that the disease is spreading along major truck routes into rural areas as migrant workers bring the virus home.
The problem of migrant workers is a big one. The town of Birganj (120km from Kathmandu) is Nepal's busiest border checkpoint and a prime case study in the problem of immorality spreading disease. A river of trucks carrying goods from India enter Nepal through Birganj. As they wait for clearance from customs, truck drivers and their assistants often frequent brothels that have sprung up covertly on both sides of tbe border. One journal had an interview with a middle-aged Indian who regularly hauls goods-laden trucks into Nepal. He said he couldn't remember how many trips he had made to Birgaj... and neither can he remember how many trysts he has had with sex workers on the roadside. He's heard about AIDS, but doesn't know enough to "protect" himself. Such activity could make bordertowns into huge transport centres for the spread of sexually transmitted diseases, including HIV/AIDS.
Responses to the stronghold
This isn't going to be an easy one to tackle. Organized crime has a big foothold in the sex trade, and confronting this trade can be dangerous for Christians. Moreover, just developing a ministry can be difficult. As a Christian ministry, should we instruct people on how to protect themselves from sexually-transmitted diseases? Or should we only concentrate on declaring immorality to be wrong? Both avenues have consequences. If prostitution is eliminated, then the prostitutes will have to find new jobs. Helping them to learn new skills is an important task. And what about those who are forced into sexual slavery against their will? Who will stand up for them? There are a few case studies to examine:
- The International Labor Organization has begun an investigation into the problem of child sex trade with $130,000 donated by Britain. The report will assess the problem, existing national strategies, and examine the possibility of a regional strategy. They hope to have a convention drafted by 1998 and ratified by 1999.
- Rescue missions in Thailand: "Singapore-based World Outreach says most rescue missions in Thailand are aimed at brothel prostitutes. Since 1993 its own Rahab Ministries has been helping prostitutes from Patpong's bars, which cater to sex tourists. Rahab Ministries provides a salon that offers not only hairdressing, but friendship, biblical counseling, and Christian witness." (World Pulse, November 22, 1996).
- The Thai Women of Tomorrow project aims to keep young girls out of the sex industry. It was begun in 1992 and partially supported by USAID. The project is designed to give young girls more educational and occupational opportunities to keep them from choosing prostitution to get out of poverty.
Suggestions
Like drugs, alcoholism, corruption and other vices, sexual sins are tremendous stronghold that Christians must face in the process of evangelization. It will not be an easy stronghold to defeat; it is a huge industry that will not take lightly to being demolished. Ministry to those suffering under the weight of this stronghold, however, will offer many ministry avenues that may cause governments to welcome Christians.
- That there be REPENTANCE by the Church where in any way it has shown an unloving, un-Christlike attitude to those afflicted with AIDS/HIV person.
- Christian missions ought to examine how they can develop ministries to those suffering from the sex industry, including those afflicted with disease.
- Christian missions should examine how they can develop ministries that educate people on the price of immorality.
- Christians should continue to press for the release of those forced into sexual slavery.
