Are you a parent of an 8 to 10 year old daughter, or maybe a grand parent of one or two children? Let me walk through a story that takes place in Indonesia. It is not of a particular family, but has happened. Think of your oldest daughter being 8 to 10 years old with a 6 year old sister. You moved to the big city a year ago to have work that paid more than what you had been earning. It is hard to support a family on what you make, but at least you have food on the table and a bed to sleep in. Both you and your spouse become ill from bad water, causing cholera. The drinking water was boiled for less than 20 minutes, for you were in a hurry to go shopping. You go shopping and return home. The next day you go shopping again for you have no refrigerator. While shopping both of you become weak and someone helps you to the hospital. Upon your death at the hospital, the nurses and doctors do not know where you live and do not know if there are children or not. There is no identification on either of you, just some rupiah that you were going to use and purchase food.

Your two young girls were playing with friends when you left. So they waited patiently for you to return for one week, and then two, and then three. You had taught your oldest daughter how to cook rice which they did each day while waiting for you to come home. By the end of the 4th week, they run out of rice and have nothing else to eat.  

So your older daughter takes her younger sister by the hand and they go farther into the city where there were lots of people and found other children asking for money. They watch what they do and what they say. So they also began asking any and everyone for money to buy food. A bowl of rice costs about $.50 and it took 3 or 4 hours to get that much money for both to eat, one meal at one of the many sidewalk cafes. As the weeks go by they even received enough money to buy new shoes and a plastic cover to get under, when it rained. Some days it rained almost all day.

A couple of months or maybe even 4 or 5 months go by and one day a man is having some refreshments in his car, waiting for someone, it seemed. As he is watching those passing by, your two orphaned daughters come up to him and ask him for money. He replies that he can help them with providing them shelter, food, and clothing. He was well dressed with a kind face and a soft voice. So they decide to go with him and so they get to the car. The man is now in a hurry and takes the older girl by the arm and roughly puts her into the car, pushes her across the seat, gets in and drives off. She is very confused and stands up in the seat and looks out the back window as her 6 year old sister is still standing there, not knowing what is going on or what to do and soon is out of sight as the car turns a corner.

Within a minute she was out of sight and a few minutes later they come to an old house and a woman comes out to get her. The lady takes her by the hand and leads her into the house and with a soft voice gives instructions that she is to be nice to everyone if she wanted to eat. As long as she was nice and did what they asked, she would receive food and clothing and in time spending money to buy things for herself. She is told not to run away or the police would put her in jail.

She is given a good meal that evening and then showed where she is to sleep. She is left alone and cries herself to sleep, trying not to think about her sister. She wakes up the next morning and the lady gets her something to eat and then takes her to a different house.

This one had many rooms and there is a number of other girls her age up to real old, maybe 18 or so. She once again is given the harsh words that she is to always do what she is told and if not, she will be punished severely. She is kept busy washing dishes and floors. As the afternoon turns to dusk, she is taken to a bedroom thinking she was going to go to bed. The lady told her that a young man was going to come to visit her and again she is told what to do. A few minutes later a young man, around 25 or so, is brought into her room and he soon asks her to remove her clothes and to get onto the bed. Then he undresses in front of her and climbs onto the bed next to her. He positions her and straddles her. She is now beginning the nightmare of being a forced prostitute, not able to break free of it for many years, if at all. In a few weeks she will forget about her sister and be acclimated to this life and will willingly tell these young men how much it costs for one girl (about $30) and if they will want two of them (about $60), both being around 10 years old and the men from 18 to 60 or more. 

Are you mad, upset, or furious as to what you just read? The audacity of writing such a story, you might be thinking. This happens to a female virgin 8 to 10 years old, up to 50 times a night in Medan. Would you like to provide the support to take one or two of these girls out of this situation? It is $50 to $70 per month, a small amount for what you will achieve. For the cost of a couple of meals at a restaurant, or less than a couple of packs of cigarettes a day, you can have a child be part of your .... extended family. Begin right now and help one of these girls or even a boy to be taken out of this life style and they will be given a home that provides love which includes Shelter, Food, Education and Medical Care. 

You are probably asking as to what happened to the 6 year old girl. If you did, you have a caring heart, because if you didn't, why help? One of three things will happen to her. She may not get enough money and over time she will die of starvation. The second event that could happen is that someone comes along in another 2 years or so and she also becomes a prostitute. Or the third event would be that she becomes a living street child, hiding from the police, not trusting anyone, using survival skills she learns, or may even team up with a friend and barely survive and become an adult street person in 12 years or so.