The Photo that Changed my Life by Diana Scimone

 

The Photo that Changed my Life
by Diana Scimone
founder, Born2Fly

“Do you see the cages in that window?” my contact asked.

“Cages?” I repeated with horror. “What’s in them?”

“Five-year-old girls.”

I wanted to throw up. With that one sentence, my life was about to change.

It was early on a Saturday evening in Mumbai, India—May 26, 2001.

I was doing research for an article I was writing about forced prostitution of women. My contact was taking me through the city’s red-light district, which is one of the largest in Asia.

As a journalist I had been to dozens of countries covering everything from starving refugees in Sudan, to people living under the brutal dictatorship in Zimbabwe, to throw-away babies abandoned at an orphanage in China.

I had seen a lot—but never cages that held little girls.

My contact explained that these little girls are smuggled across the border from Nepal into India, and held in cages for 30 days. They’re raped, tortured, starved, and urinated on until they no longer have a will to rebel or run away.

Only then are they fit to be sold as child sex slaves.

I got my photo

“You can take a picture,” my contact cautioned, “but don’t let the pimps see you or they’ll steal your camera.”

I got my photo. It’s not the best in the world but you can clearly see the bars on the cages

I call it the photo that changed my life.

I learned there are millions of girls like the ones held in those cages. They’re raped for profit 30 or 40 times a night — night after night after night.

Did I mention there are millions of them?

They’re not just “over there” but “over here,” too. Child trafficking happens not only in 3rd-world countries, but all over the world—yes, including in the United States in small towns and large cities.

With a few clicks of your mouse, you can book a child-sex tour—to Atlanta and other cities around the U.S. Pick your child, hair color, sex and age, and she or he will be waiting for you in a hotel room near any major airport.

You may think I’m exaggerating, but I’m not.

Child trafficking is organized crime. It’s a $37-billion-a-year industry—the 2nd-highest grossing illegal industry on the planet after illegal drugs.

It’s very lucrative with very little risk. You can sell a drug once, but you can sell a child over and over again

What’s happened since I took that picture?

I came home from that trip and couldn’t stop thinking about what I’d seen. A few years later I launched a non-profit organization that became the Born2Fly Project to stop child trafficking.

I had the crazy idea that a children’s book and curriculum could warn kids and parents about the lies traffickers tell. If we could reach kids before the traffickers do, maybe we could help stop child trafficking.

16 years later we have an anti-trafficking curriculum and wordless children’s book that more than 800 organizations have registered to teach in 65+ countries—including in India and Nepal.

We have exciting stories in many other countries too—Uganda, Bulgaria, Russia, Thailand, Botswana, Kenya, and many others—but today you will understand why India and Nepal are on my heart.

Those countries have been on my heart for 16 years. Along with the unseen girls in those cages.

* * *

Diana’s passion is not just to stop child trafficking, but to empower teens and youth who want to stop the traffic but don’t know where to begin. “When I talk to youth about trafficking, they’re already very aware and even know peers who are being trafficked,” Diana says. “They want to get involved in the fight to stop the traffic, but don’t know where or how to plug in.”

At MissHeardMedia, we’re going to help you find out exactly how to do that! In Diana’s next blog post for us, she’ll share some fun creativity exercises from her book Audacious that will help you identify what you already like to do and are good at doing, and how you can use those skills and giftings to make a difference—either to stop human trafficking or whatever issue of injustice keeps you up at night.

All photographs (c) 2001 Diana Scimone
Reproduction prohibited.

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