Please welcome a guest writer and great friend, Genesis Wheeler. Genesis is wife to Mike and mother to four children. She is currently finishing a degree in biblical counseling and will travel this summer to Nepal with Restoring Hope Nepal, an anti-trafficking group. On her trip she will visit the residences established by Restoring Hope Nepal which ministers to women affected or susceptible to sex trafficking. In Nepal, certain types of prostitution are legal.

We have already featured a book review on Sold by Patricia McCormick, which you may read here.

I hope you appreciate Genesis' perspective!

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When I told Addie that I would be going to Nepal this summer to spend time with the women living in a safe house after being rescued from sex trafficking, she recommended that I read Sold by Patricia McCormick. Addie’s wise advice was for me to take time reading and learning about the subject of sex trafficking so that I would have a better understanding for what those who have been trafficked have faced. Since Sold is set in Nepal and India, it has some cultural relevance to what I might experience this coming summer.

I found Sold to be heartbreaking from the very beginning. McCormick does a masterful job of juxtaposing the beauty of the simplicity of life in the mountains with the harsh realities of poverty and being a woman in Nepal. Through her storytelling it was much easier to understand how traffickers can easily take advantage of poverty stricken families with such ease. When the scenery changed from the mountains to the city, and then again to the brothel, I could feel my shoulders tensing as I anticipated what I knew was coming. It was impossible for me not to think of my own daughter as I read of the continued traumas and abuses the characters were subjected to.

Photo by Giuseppe Mondì on Unsplash

Somehow McCormick manages to share a cruel and distressing story with delicacy and humanity. While the book does not provide answers, it sheds light on the many small problems that contribute to human and sex trafficking. As I read through the book, I was confronted with my own biases. I’ve been guilty of saying things such as, “I would never allow that to happen with my child,” or “How could someone choose that?” Sold opened my eyes (again) to the many privileges that I have and the many cultural norms that I subscribe to. It caused me to consider (again) how little I know and understand about the world and how little understanding I have for the problems that contribute to trafficking. Sold is one of the books that has gotten into my heart and mind and has shaken the tidy little framework that I’ve tried cramming the world into. I say with great enthusiasm that I recommend Sold, not only for those who care about the issues of sex trafficking, but also for those who are looking to read a well-written and thought-provoking book.

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