WAR Testimonies

---

While spending time with the Women At Risk (WAR) in Nazaret, I was humbled by hearing these girls testimonies and the things they had been through, why they ended up in prostitution, and how they were rescued out.... it was incrediably intense....sitting in a room, face to face with SUCH A YOUNG, beautiful young lady as she fails to hold back tears .... here is just a glimpse of two girls stories.....

KALIE'S STORY - Her mother and father were not from the same tribe, so after having 6 children, they were forced into a divorce. Because of this, her mother had no job...so she started to collect wood and bundle it up for Kalie to sell everyday in the market to try and make a living. Her mother got to the point that she could no longer care for these 6 children with no education, no job, no husband...so she took all 6 kids to the market and was telling everyone how she couldn't take care of them....so 4 of the children were taken by different people and seperated, but Kalie and her brother stayed with her mother.....and started to sell injera (type of bread). She was 11 years old at this time....One day while her mom was cooking the injera to have her go sell, her legs were badly burned......Kalie didn't have the money to take care of her mother or get her to the hospital, so she turned to her neighbor who was a prostitute for money. The neighbor told her the ONLY way to save her money was to work for her and become a prostitue. She desperatly wanted to take care of her mother and felt she had no option...she was 11 years old...so she told her neighbor she would do whatever she had to in order to make her mother better............The first time an old man paid her 300 Birr, took her to a bar and gave her alcohol, and she doesn't remember what happened next..... but afterwards...her neighbor took a good chunk of the money and gave her part of it. As soon as she got paid for that first time, she took her mom to the hospital, but they wouldn't help her mother because she didn't have enough money. She said she was rolling around on the floor of the hospital entrance begging them to save her mother's life.....her mother died soon after this incident...... she was 11 years old, and had nobody to care for her, but she was now responsible for caring for her 2 younger brothers..... Kalie felt her only choice was to keep working for her neighbor as a prostitute...the village looked down upon her and called her and her brothers names.... so she decided to move to a different town to be a prostitue so her brothers were not associated with her...she moved about 3 hours away to Nazaret where she continued working as a prostitute, and would send her brothers all the money she would make so they could survive, and she would sleep on the streets. This is when women from WAR (Women At Risk program) approached her 3 or 4 times asking her to leave her life and come join their program...they made sure her brothers would be taken care of so she could join this program.....she is SO thankful that she no longer is living on the streets and selling her body as a last resort.....

KONJO's STORY - Her father died in a car accident, her mother was sick with cancer and died, one of her brothers committed suicide....her Aunt who she lived with wanted her to go into prostitution, but her other brother said he would rather live on the streets then let her do that....So they went and lived on the streets for a while, but were hit, and kicked, and spit on....and eventually had to go begging back to the aunt to take them in. Her aunt sent her to a room to spend the night with her first "client." She went to the room at 10pm. Within that hour, 6 men came to her room......One of the six men had a knife, they hit her, covered her mouth, and all 6 of the men raped her. In the morning, she literally couldn't walk...she was laying in the middle of the floor of the room. Her aunt found her there and started yelling and kicking her on the ground..... thankfully police officers saw what was going on and helped her out of the situation..... her brother and her were back on the streets after this incident, but someone ended up killing her brother.....she had no money to bury him...so the beggers on the street raised money for her to bury him.... A wealthy woman found her on the street and told her she wanted to take her in as her own daughter.....this wealthy woman also had 3 sons who had come home drunk one night and all were trying to have sex with her.....they all abused her. She ran from this woman's home because she couldn't stand being abused by the sons. This is when she became a full on prostitute...she was hopeless..... she found out she was HIV positive...... she found out she was pregnant, and started cooking for a woman to make money....but one day she burned the food, and the woman she cooked for was so mad that she poured boiling water on her back and took 2 months pay from her..... She found a 14 year old kicking her baby on the streets and rushed the baby to the hospital. The baby is alive and BEAUTIFUL.... She was approached when she was on the streets about WAR (women at risk) and decided she wanted to go just for the safety of her own child...... She felt so hopeless before WAR, and she concluded saying "I pray that God heals me from HIV, and I am thankful that He saved me, and gave me my life back."

---