cambodia - Babies for Sale

Babies for Sale by Kelly Davidson

In the countries I've been to, I've seen so many different things being sold on the streets. Tires, food, clothes, household goods, school supplies. These things are all laid out on blankets or wooden planks on the ground, while men and women sit among them, calling everyone in sight to come buy their goods.

Here, in Phnom Phen, though, while driving thigh the city at night, I saw a new product that I have never seen before, and hope to never see again. Human babies. Two tiny human beings, completely unconscious, laying on a thin blanket on the concrete, wrapped in rags. A man sat with them, smiling and calling to passerbys. He was selling them for sex. How can someone do this? These are little people. They have favorite foods, they like to play and dance and sing, and they seek after true, healthy love and friendship. These two little ones couldn't have been older than one or two years. Not only were they being sold for sex, but people are buying them for sex. For each transaction, at least two deeply disturbed people are mistreating these innocent children in a way that makes most of us cringe. It's disgusting, and it makes me angry. I'm angry at the pimp, for drugging these babies and selling them as casually as someone selling socks. I'm angry at the pedophiles buying them and using them for unimaginable acts. I'm angry at the Cambodian government for not doing anything about this clear problem of abuse and endangerment of children. And I asked God why. Why do these things happen? And what can I do about it? God gave us free will to make choices. Sin came into this world through a poor choice made by humans. God isn't the one causing pain and horror. It happens because we are corrupt. It's a natural consequence. When people are hurting, they hurt people. They think it's going to drown their own pain, but it can't. It only ruins more lives in the process. I can't go out and rescue every man, woman, and child being victimized by sex trafficking. I can't arrest the people selling or buying them like they're goods to be traded. I can't raid brothels and bars, or shut down trafficking rings, or take kids away from their parents.

Some people can do these things, but very few of us can. So all I can do it pray. I hate that phrase. ALL I can do? That's it? I remember hearing someone once refer to prayer as going before the High King, a compassionate, kind, loving King. He sees us, He knows what we want to say even when we can't find the words to speak the horrors laying heavy on our hearts. Speaking to Him, pleading with Him, isn't the ONLY thing we can do, but the BEST thing we can do. And when I remember this, I remember that I am made in His image. And not only am I made in God's image, but so are the precious babies being sold, and so are the men doing the selling and buying. In order to reflect God the way know I should, the way I want to, I have to put aside my anger for the people who are committing these atrocities. I have to look at them as broken and hurting people who need God to heal their hearts and minds. I need to try to understand what kind of desperation and perversion must have led to this heinous behavior.

So I must pray for them. Praying for the kids is so important, but praying for the traffickers and the johns is even more so. The problem will never, ever end if the men and women never find relief from their pain.

"I lift my eyes up to the hills Where does my help come from? My help comes from the Lord, The maker of heaven and earth." Psalm 121:1