Features Reporter
When Business Administration major Amanda Conrads went on a mission trip to the small village of Svay Pak, Cambodia, she met a four-year-old girl with bracelets on her wrist. Conrads thought that the bracelets were a good sign, that they meant the young girl’s family had money, so the girl wouldn’t have to be sold into sex trafficking like many young girls in Svay Pak. But Conrads learned the heartbreaking truth from an employee where she volunteered. He told her that the bracelets actually were a sign that the girl had likely been trafficked, because they made her more attractive to Western men.
“Since then, I’ve been super passionate about this topic,” Conrads said. “I don’t think it’s okay, and I want people to be upset about it. It’s an issue that people need to be upset about before something can change. Otherwise, we just choose to not pay attention to it.”
Human trafficking is one of the fastest growing crimes in the world and the world’s second largest criminal enterprise, surpassed only by drug trafficking. Cambodia isn’t the only place that needs a change.
“When we talk to people about it, they are just really surprised,” Conrads said. “Like ‘Oh? That actually happens? I thought that was a movie thing. I thought that only happened in Asia.’ It actually happens in Grand Junction. It’s very much a United States problem.”
While in Cambodia, Conrads worked with Agape International Missions to fight human trafficking. She spent time in a restoration center dedicated to helping girls recover from their time in human trafficking. She went to Svay Pak and worked in Rahab’s House, a community center for the local kids. She taught English, helped with arts and crafts, worked in the health clinics and got to know the children.
“It was a huge blessing to be there and to get to work with the kids,” Conrads said. “I really don’t feel like we did a whole lot there. I feel like being there did way more for me than I did for anyone there.”
Conrads discovered that a man named Joel Sandvos was making a documentary in Svay Pak while she was there. She knew she could use it as an opportunity to inform people back home of the problem. Eight months ago, the film, the Pink Room, became available for screenings, and with the help of Master Plan Ministries and co-hosts of the event, Travis Roth and Sherah DaCosta, she was able to have the film screened at CMU on Wednesday.
The film mostly follows Mien, a girl who grew up in Svay Pak and was forced into human trafficking at a young age. She tells how hopeless and depressed she had been for the years that she was trafficked. Then, she is saved by Agape International Missions, and she finds hope.
“It really breaks your heart to read the stories of these girls who over and over again have their lives broken,” Roth said. “The point of showing this video is that there is restoration. There is hope after that. There is a positive message and a happy ending.”
Showing the film will hopefully increase awareness of this growing problem. Few people know the severity of human trafficking right now.
“It’s blown my mind to see how much of it happens in our backyard, and to realize that it’s a lot deeper problem than anybody really realizes,” Roth said.
DaCosta feels so passionately about fighting human trafficking that she plans to move to Thailand with her husband to help victims. She will be working with a ministry called Night Light International that builds relationships with women and offers them a way out of human trafficking.
“They go out into the red-light districts and start making friends with the women,” DaCosta said. “They offer them jobs. They are a jewelry business. They market jewelry here in the States, but they offer the women jobs above minimum wage.”
Currently, there are not a lot of resources in Grand Junction to fight human trafficking, but Conrads hopes that spreading the word will help change that. CMU professor Dr. Tom Acker is involved with the Colorado Project, an organization that fights human trafficking.
“They are trying to get a plant in Grand Junction,” Conrads said. “We talked to him [Acker] this afternoon, and he said that one of the biggest things for them is knowing that they have student support. The students at CMU can make a difference.”
akmaddox@mavs.coloradomesa.edu
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