With millions trafficked from 127 countries and exploited in 137 countries, the human trafficking industry has a total market worth of more than $32 billion.*
Melesech was 11-years-old when her father brought her to Addis Ababa and cast her into a life of servitude to her aunt, a move that doomed her to being viewed as less than a second class citizen in the Ethiopian social hierarchy. Day after day, year after year she was forced to drink a bitter cup of servitude until her young life was all but used up. She would never again know the innocent joys of childhood or even be allowed to go to school.
When Melesech was 14, her aunt died. The family kicked her out and she was forced to seek domestic work elsewhere. The woman she served next proved impossible and after only 6 months she was desperately looking for new alternatives. She had made friends with some street girls who weaved marvelous tales of having money and freedom. Thinking that was the solution to her problems, Melesech was lured into the sex trade.
One fateful evening in February of 2007, ICA President Pat Bradley happened to pass Melesech standing in the doorway of her room.
Prompted by the special ‘nudge’ that often leads him to the most fortuitous of meetings, Pat stopped. He noticed a picture of Jesus over Melesech’s bed and asked her if she prayed. Turning a wistful eye to the picture, she confessed that she prayed every night for God to get her out of that life.
Pat outlined ICA’s fledgling SAFE program to rescue girls like her from the sex trade, told her of hope in the Jesus she prayed to and offered her the chance to leave with him.
“Is it really true what you are saying?”
Melesech asked that question three times over the course of their conversation that evening. Assuming she meant about the program, Pat assured her each time that it was true .
She didn’t go with him that night but promised to think about it. When Pat came back a few days later she had made her choice. Her few belongings packed and in hand, Melesech inquired for a fourth time:
“Is it really true what you are saying?”
“Is what true ?” Pat asked, wondering which part of the SAFE program continued to trouble her.
“Will God really forgive me for all I have done?”
Armed with the reassurance that God already had, Melesech turned her back on the sex trade that day to pursue a positive future in ICA’s SAFE program.
Find out more about Melesech and how her life was transformed in Part 2 of The Bonsai Tree: In the Hands of the Master
*United Nations, Press Release Note No. 6152 (2 June 2008)
Juliann Troi
Author of Where There Is No Comfort: Seven Days in Ethiopia
