The One

This past Winter I had the opportunity to meet a number of interesting and beautiful people in the country of Uganda. But among all of the new people I met, the one who left the largest impact upon me, was a young girl I interviewed in a dirty and run-down Orphanage just outside of Kampala. Let's call her Mikay.

Mikay, like many other young children in Uganda, has fallen victim to the atrocities of the War in the North. While peacefully living a simple life in her village with her family, Joseph Kony's rebel army quickly thrust her into a nightmare. They burned her village down and she and her family were forced to flee into the bush for safety. They lived there in abject fear for over a year, terrified that each new day would bring with it the realization that the rebel army knew where they were. And one day, I'm sad to say, she met that fear face to face. The rebels found her and her family, killed one of her parents, and took her away. She doesn't know where her other parent is or her siblings. She served as a sex slave and domestic for Kony's militants for over 2 years, until she escaped one day amid a skirmish with the UPDF.


Returning to the Bush for safety, Mikay ran into a childhood friend who offered her a chance for hope: "Let's go to Kampala and get jobs and an apartment together." Overjoyed at a chance for a new life, Mikay gladly assented. But upon her arrival in Kampala, she was sold by her "friend" into prostitution. This beautiful young girl was a child prostitute in the streets of Kampala for what seemed like forever. Her escape from this new nightmare was being sold into domestic servitude. After being moved from house to house in the Kampala underground slave trade, she finally lifted her cries up to God: "Lord," she cried, "I have never stolen from anyone, lied to anyone, or cheated anyone because I know that it's wrong. But I'm starving and alone and tired and if you can't help me, I would rather die." She was soon kicked out of the house she was working in, and found herself once again on the streets.


The One
By Sharon Cohn - Vice President, Interventions

Rather unoriginally, I suppose, Mother Teresa is one of my heroes. She exemplified better than perhaps anyone, the significance of the one. When a priest was trying to discourage her from a dangerous mission, she replied, “It is not an idea, Father, I think it is our duty…If I didn’t do it that time [pick up the one] I would never had picked up the 42,000 in Calcutta.”


I think back to this sometimes when I am asked how I keep from being overwhelmed by the sheer enormity of the injustices we labor to combat. Or when I am challenged with grim statistics and asked, “So you have rescued hundreds of bonded slaves in the past few months. There are tens of millions still enslaved. What is the point?”


The point is the one. Let me tell you about her. I met Simla* more than two years ago in May 2002 when I was assisting with my first brothel raid with IJM. Based on our information the police rescued six children and arrested one offender. Simla was the most reserved of the girls rescued that day. Her eyes darted with skepticism and distrust and she was loath to smile when I met her.


With good reason. Simla had been promised a job in a restaurant two-and-a-half years earlier, and had instead been taken to the brothel where she had been subjected to exploitation day and night without end. When our investigators first met her, she begged them to give a good report to the brothel keeper because she had been beaten severely the last time a customer had complained.


Simla and I walked back into the brothel together one hot day when the police took us to retrieve her few possessions. It was a painful glimpse into the life of a teenager enslaved, the bizarre juxtaposition of childhood and brutality, posters of teenage idols and bank ledgers of customers’ payments.


Why this one?
IJM has assisted in rescuing hundreds of girls from commercial sexual exploitation since Simla, some of whom I have come to know. So why do I want to write you about her? Simla’s story is not unique, except that, of course, it is. It is unique to Simla. She has plans and dreams just like you and I. Men and women conspired to crush her uniqueness and her value, but we are committed to seeking justice for her.


And so, too, for one little girl in a rock quarry in South Asia. Kani* wasn’t among the others when IJM went with the authorities to raid the quarry. As a matter of fact, our investigators did not know about her family and had not documented this case of slavery during the investigation. At the end of a successful raid, IJM staff members were leaving the quarry where 76 people had been freed from slavery. A desperate woman, Kani’s mother, began banging on the door of one of the cars in the caravan. She explained that her family had not been present for the investigation, but they wanted to be taken out of the quarry. She explained that Kani had been injured while working at the quarry. After inadequate medical care and a raging infection, her middle finger had been amputated just that day to save the rest of her arm.


IJM stopped the caravan and with the help of local police officers found the husband and the eight family members, including the young girl. The family had been working as bonded slaves in the quarry for three years trying to pay off a $400 US debt. The pleas of a desperate mother were heard and her family was freed. IJM staff members have been working with Kani to help prepare her for a more promising future. She’s now back in her native village with her family, attending school and getting the education she deserves.


To Simla and to Kani it mattered that IJM brought the hand of justice to them despite the massiveness of the problem of oppression. Not only is each victim the one, but we likewise can be the one. The one called, the one listening, the one willing, the one sent to bring freedom and justice to innocent ones who are suffering.


Being overwhelmed by the numbers is an indulgence the oppressed can ill afford. Thank you, dear friend, for your willingness to stand with us for each child, each woman and each man who longs for the chance of a new life of hope.