The public is invited to a presentation by Venerable Sisters Molini and Dhamma Vijaya of Nepal. These extraordinary Buddhist nuns, with doctorates in feminism, have established Dhamma Moli, a sanctuary to rescue girls from being kidnapped by sex traffickers.
The presentation will take place on the evening of March 19 at the Insight Meditation Center of Pioneer Valley, 116 Pleasant Street, Suite 242, Easthampton, MA (directions). There is no charge to attend, but contributions are welcome. This facility is handicapped accessible. No incense is used.
The event will begin at 7:15pm with quiet meditation, followed by the presentation at 8pm. The meditation period is optional. Feel free to arrive at 8pm if you prefer.
In the remote mountain villages of Nepal where people are uneducated, poor, and increasingly without a family provider (many fathers and husbands have been killed in the decade-long people’s war), girls are at a greater risk than ever before.
Too often these girls are taken to Kathmandu, then to India, to be sold to brothels. If not brothels, these innocent children are sold to Indian circuses where they are subject to harsh conditions and sexual abuse.
Writes Adi Bemak, a Community Dharma Leader at the Insight Meditation Center, “I had the great opportunity to visit Dhamma Moli this past November, and to personally spend time with Sister Dhamma Vijaya, Sister Molini, and the young girls whose lives they have saved. There are no words to express what it was like to be in the presence of these children, realizing what they and their families have suffered through the sex trafficking industry. By the thousands girls have been sold to brothels, later facing HIV and eventual death from AIDS.
“Witnessing Sister Dhamma Vijaya and Sister Molini’s dedication to providing a safe haven for these children so that they can grow into healthy young women was inspiring beyond description. Please come to meet Sister Dhamma Vijaya and Sister Molini and hear their presentation about Dhamma Moli. I believe you will never forget these two honored guests once you have heard their stories and benefited from their teachings. They both are true treasures performing incredible work.”
See also:
Gloria Steinem at Smith: Cooperation, Not Domination
…there are more slaves in proportion to the world’s population–more people held by force or coercion without benefit from their work–more now than there were in the 1800s. Sex trafficking, labor trafficking, children and adults forced into armies: they all add up to a global human-trafficking industry that is more profitable than the arms trade, and second only to the drug trade. The big difference now from the 1800s is that the United Nations estimates that 80% of those who are enslaved are women and children…
Letter to the Gazette: “Addressing prostitution, promiscuity in war on AIDS”
Most sex workers in developing nations are more like slaves than they are like the “D.C. Madam”. Trafficking in women is a human rights violation that self-styled progressives like Garrett should oppose. Moreover, heterosexual women in the Third World, who lack the social power to enforce safe-sex guidelines in their relationships, are being infected with AIDS at an alarming rate by husbands who patronize prostitutes.
New York Times: “The Girls Next Door”; Worldwide Sex Trafficking; Role of Porn
Kevin Bales of Free the Slaves says: ”The physical path of a person being trafficked includes stages of degradation of a person’s mental state. A victim gets deprived of food, gets hungry, a little dizzy and sleep-deprived. She begins to break down; she can’t think for herself. Then take away her travel documents, and you’ve made her stateless. Then layer on physical violence, and she begins to follow orders. Then add a foreign culture and language, and she’s trapped…”
”There’s a vast misunderstanding of what coercion is, of how little it takes to make someone a slave,” Gary Haugen of International Justice Mission said. ”The destruction of dignity and sense of self, these girls’ sense of resignation…”