Behind the Soiled Curtain.

"Human life is the gift of our Creator - and it should never be for sale." -George W. Bush

Today, I asked Sarah if she had any Christianity books I could borrow. Here's what she gave me. She knew that I had been researching about the red-light district in India, and thought I would enjoy reading this book. I'm about 122 pages in, and I can hardly take it. I've almost started crying on just about every single page.

The book starts out with some of these statistics:

• 2 million children are exploited in the global commercial sex trade each year. 
• Profits from sex trafficking are estimated to be as high as $19 billion annually.
• A 2004 UNICEF report estimated that India supplied 50% of the children worldwide entering into the sex trade.
• 2.3 million women and girls are prostituted and/or working as madams in India.
• As many as 17,500 people are trafficked into the United States every year for the purposes of forced labor and sexual exploitation.

Those are only a few of the many statistics throughout the book. If that's not heartbreaking, I don't know what is. There are some books that really just hit you. They hit you head on like a bus. This is one of those books. At least half the things mentioned in this book.. I had no idea existed. I've stopped many times to read Matthew passages. It has blown my mind.

Prostitution is a real issue. I've discussed it before with Free Set. It's something that needs to be addressed. It has exploded on the global market and has become very popular with organized crime. Women are undervalued everywhere. God can save them. Many of these women's lives have been saved because they have accepted Jesus into their hearts.

My heart is heavy tonight thinking about all the women who are subjected to this treatment. I've been praying since I started reading this book. This is something that will weigh on my heart for a long time to come. In fact, I'm going to do research on women and God. I know of a book about Proverbs 31, and I plan to read it next. This is the beginning of a very big spiritual endeavor.

"Tears shed for self are tears of weakness, but tears shed for others are a sign of strength." - Billy Graham.