Modern-day slavery

Powerful video about sex trafficking and modern slavery around the world.  Thank you to Daisy Nunez for sharing this with us!  Please continue to pray for our ministry!

The Cycle of Poverty and Prostitution

Photos taken in Sosua, Dominican Republic, a town with a booming sex trade.  This town is one of the major hubs here for sex tourism.  Photos by Jessica Ensing Photography.

When I share my messages, stories, and videos about child prostitution with friends, family, acquaintances, and the world wide web, the responses I get vary, but there is a general sense of surprise, disgust, shock, horror, and a desire to help.  People say "I can't believe that could ever happen" and "That's so awful" and "I'm so happy for what you're doing".  Trying to imagine a sweet innocent child as precious as the ones in our video forced into a life of prostitution is something that breaks all of our hearts and makes us want to help each of them.

But what about adult women in prostitution?  That subject is one often met entirely differently.  I've seen people point, laugh, make jokes, and use synonym words for adult prostitutes as a slang or derogatory term.  When sharing about wanting to help these women, I've been met with "It's her choice", "If she didn't want to do it, she wouldn't do it", and "She's making good money, why interfere?".  Some of the tourists who come here and buy prostitutes have actually felt they were helping these women by paying them a good fare.

Here is the thing that they don't know. 

Almost all of the women who now prostitute were raped and/or sexually abused as children.  Most of them were forced into becoming prostitutes when they were just children.  They learn this trade skill young instead of going to school, and after a few years, all other options they had ever hoped for seem to fade away for them.  Many of them start having their own children as teens, young teens, and they continue prostituting as a means for providing for their families.  Not because it was what they had dreamed and aspired to as a lifelong career, but because they love their children and want to care for them.  Their lives are not easy.  I have had women roll up their shirt sleeves and pant legs to show me scars from men who have cut them and beat them.  And these are only the physical scars.  The emotional scars run far deeper than the eye can see.

Let me tell you the story of A (name will remain unidentified), a woman who we discussed during our ministry meeting this week who our team has been working with.  A grew up in a severely abusive home.  Her brother died young of AIDS.  Her older sister became a drug addict and once tried to kill her.  Her mother abandoned her.  She became pregnant at the age of 12 and was "married off" to the older man who impregnated her.  She was forced to start prostituting to provide for her baby before I ever took my first communion or had my first period.  She didn't choose this life.  She didn't pick it for herself.  Now A is 28 years old with 3 children and is trying to turn her life around.  When asked about her prostituting, she feels ashamed and sad.  But she is trying to do something about it.  A is enrolled in university now in Santo Domingo studying tourism with the hope she will someday get a job in one of the resorts here.  She prostitutes on weekends and school breaks to make her tuition payments, in the hope that someday she will leave prostitution forever. This will help A to break a continuous cycle in her family that is so common here in the DR.  A cycle which could affect A's own children if she wasn't making the choice and putting forth the effort to do something to stop it.

We also learned a similar story this week of a woman named E.  Another woman who desperately wants to leave prostitution and make a better life for herself.  Different details, but the same strong desire for a new start.

Your prayers and support go to help these women start over.  And whether at the age of 8 or 28 or even 88, I think every person in the world deserves that fresh start.  A fresh start at reaching their dreams and living a safe and fulfilling life.

Will you take a moment right now to please pray for these two women who hope and dream for a new life and a better future?  Please pray for our team to have the strength and wisdom to help them in making a fresh start.

Thank you for your continued prayers and support.  It is making all the difference to women like A and E to have a new start in reaching their dreams.

Pajama Party!

This past Saturday night, I had a pajama party with the girls from Templo Bautista Church, who are also from our former neighborhood, Barrio Cristo Rey.  Many children from this neighborhood live in poverty and are highly at-risk for physical and sexual abuse, rape, incest, teen pregnancy, and dropping out of school.  Since we moved from Cristo Rey across town, I don't get to see these pretty little faces on my doorstep each night when I come home from work and I miss these kids tremendously.  And since baby girl will take over my life soon but for now is taking her sweet time, I thought this would be the perfect weekend for a sleepover party before baby girl arrives.

Of course, our sleepover consisted of all the fun things they usually do.  We ate pizza, went out for ice cream, danced and played in the park, played hide-and-go-seek and UNO, painted nails, colored pictures, and stayed up late watching Ice Age 2 on the laptop.  The girls played dress-up in my clothes and enjoyed borrowing my pajamas (which they had to tie up with hair ties to hold them up :)  But I also spent time talking to the girls about their rights as females, about Christian dating, and about what true love means.  I know you're probably thinking they look really young for this.  And yes I'd think so too.  But they take it all in and then pour out their feelings and stories.  One of these stories including a girl from their neighborhood who was repeatedly raped at the age of 9, and who now is pregnant at the age of 10.  And I think, I didn't even know what the word rape meant when I was 9 and was just feeling ready for pregnancy this year at the age of 29.  How can this possibly happen to a 4th grader?  But to these girls, it is all too familiar.  Elissa Duncan, who has been helping with our ministry over the past year, made up these awesome "Priceless Bills" and had them laminated to give to girls in the area.  These bills give girls guidelines to follow and remind them that they are priceless gifts from God who can never be purchased for any amount of money.  Their value and beauty is infinite and they are not property to be sold or purchased.  It also includes a drawing of a young girl wearing a leotard/bathing suit that says over it "Not to touch" so girls can learn about what parts of their bodies are private and should stay protected.  The girls cherished these bills and were excited taking them home with them as gifts from the sleepover.  No goody bags or gift bags, just a laminated piece of paper, but they read over each word carefully and carried them proudly with them out the door.  Thanks Elissa for sharing these, and for the difference you have made to so many girls around Jarabacoa by creating these "Priceless Bills"!

I can never emphasize enough how important it is to teach these girls their value and personal rights when they are YOUNG.  Our ministry is currently planning to teach workshops in the fall regarding sexual education and personal protection of their bodies.  I remember both as a student and teacher in Michigan, these assemblies were provided for us by professionals and we didn't have to worry about planning something ourselves.  But in this country where abuse, rape, and incest are so rampant and this kind of education is rare, it is so important to educate these girls of their personal rights.

In the meantime, my heart will continue to break for all of the stories I hear each day and I will pray for the protection and healing of the girls in each of these cases.  Will you join me in praying for this too?

Thank you to each person reading this for following us and teaming with us.  Please read and print this "Bill of Rights" to share with girls wherever YOU are to prevent abuse, rape, and trafficking.  Please continue to share with others and follow our Alliance! :)

Kristin and the Alianza team

Anti-trafficking video message from Red Light District

Powerful message about trafficking in Europe - watch until the end. :)

Bill of Rights for Girls

Hi all,

I've been spending a lot of time thinking about what girls down here (and all around the world) face and how much their rights are ignored and neglected.  I created this Bill of Rights to share with girls and young women so they know their own rights and feel they can stand up for their rights as females.  I see too many young girls here forced to do things they would not choose to because they feel it is their obligation to their family, relatives, or others from their community, or because they are fearful of what will happen to them if they do not comply.  

Please copy and use this list freely with young girls in your community to educate them on their rights and to help prevent sexual abuse, assault, and trafficking - this is happening everywhere, not just the DR!  I can also provide you with a copy in Spanish as needed, or email you this as a Word document if you would prefer it in that form.  Thanks for teaming with us in our fight against sex trafficking! 

 Kristin and the Alianza team :)

Bill of Rights for Girls and Women:

1.    I have the right to decide who I will and will not date, be in a relationship with, or marry.  No one can force me into a relationship I do not choose to be in.

2.     I have the right to end or leave a relationship at any time, without being exposed to degrading remarks, threats, or abuse.  I am never required to remain in a relationship in where I feel uncomfortable or unsafe.

3.     I have the right to decide with whom and when I will engage in romantic or sexual activity, without being coerced, tricked, or forced.  

4.     I have the right to say no to any person who makes a request of me that I do not agree to or feel comfortable with. 

5.     I have the right to my own body and my body's privacy.  I have the right not to show/reveal any part of my body I do not choose to and no one has the right to ask me to show/reveal my body parts.

6.     I have the right to decide what line of work I choose to do.  I am not for sale and no one has the right to sell me into a line of work that I have not chosen for myself, particularly modeling, prostitution, or pornography.

7.     I have the right to personal modesty, comfort, and choice in my dress and style.  I have the right to not be pressured to dress or behave in a “sex-stereotyped” way.

8.     I have the right to accept my body the way it was made.  I have the right to be healthy and be free from pressure, coercion, or force from others to change myself in order to be thinner, or to fit their definition of beauty.

9.     I have the right to be free from any type of abuse, be it verbal, emotional, physical, and/or sexual.  I have the right to speak out and seek help if I am being abused in any way.

10.     I have the right to self-control and to not be dominated or controlled by any other person.

When I am pushed, coerced, tricked, or forced to have sexual relations beyond my will or desire, this is called rape.  Rape is a violation of my personal rights and is against the law, and I am entitled to seek out help.

Alianza Video!!

Check out our new video about our ministry and please share with others!!

Scholarship for Florecita!! :)

 

Some of your who read my DeYoungs in the Dominican blog might remember this sweet little angel who stayed at our house a few times with her brothers and sister.  We have been working with her mom, Y, who has left prostitution in recent months, and trying to help their family to get a fresh start (read their story here). Since the children did not have documents when we started working with the family, none of them had yet been to school.  Marisol, who works with our outreach ministry and who was a former teacher at ANIJA, was able to help scout out necessary papers and get little Flor on the waiting list at ANIJA, which is a Christian school here in town for low-income children and children from the Ark Orphanage here in Jarabacoa.  

We are ecstatic to report that little Flor was approved for this scholarship and will be attending pre-school at ANIJA this fall!  We are blessed to be friends with the director of this school, Paul Cooper, and his family, who are amazing people, so we know the school provides an excellent, quality Christian education to children in need.  We are so thankful that little Florecita will have this opportunity to go to such a great school!  Please continue to pray for her brother Capullo, who is still on the waiting list, and also for Y's husband, who recently left prison and is continuing to look for work.  

Flor's older brother Capullo is still on the waiting list to attend Kindergarten this fall

Thank you for your prayers and support!  Keep it coming! :)

Love, peace, prayers, and Dominican sunshine,

Kristin and the Alianza team 

Teen Girls' Night

Making pizzas - Hawaiin style!

Can you tell whose name they put on the pizza?

Making a picture/poster about Abigail and a list of her character traits

Friday night, I was lucky to have some of our teen girls over again.  We haven't been able to have one of these nights in a while, and I was so happy to have them here at the house.  As a thanks for their recent service project helping me get ready for baby girl, I wanted to do something special for them.   So we made pizzas together, did a Bible study on Abigail (we have been studying women of the Bible), and watched the movie Soul Surfer on the projector. (This is the closest we can get to a movie theatre here in Jarabacoa :)  Thanks Meleah Taylor for letting us borrow the movie, Jessica Ensing for letting us borrow the projector, and my husband Dave for helping with the delicious pizza! 

It was great to hear all the girls' thoughts on Abigail and think together about how we could model her more as women - her patience, her courage, her strength.  Then to watch the life story of Bethany Hamilton, yes a little cheesy, but an oh so amazing story of faith and perseverance.  And as I watched the girls as they were touched and inspired by her story, I am glad to say I was not the only one tearing up in the room.  Giving them hugs good-bye that night, I can't help but feel proud of them for the women I continue to see them become, and dream of how each of them, unique and beautiful in their own ways, will be able to change this country for the better.  Nights like these bring me a whole lot of peace and happiness after days on pregnancy bed rest!

Thanks for your continued love, prayers, and support!

Kristin and Alianza Team :)

Prayer Request

As I have discussed before, too many girls in the Dominican Republic face sexual abuse, rape, forced prostitution, and sexual exploitation at too young of an age.  This weekend a story was shared with us about a girl in our area that is an unsafe sexual relationship and  is considering suicide (which she has attempted once before).  She also feels that because she has no future or value, she should look into work at a nearby brothel even though she is only a teenager.  I cannot share her name or details due to confidentiality, but please pray for this young lady as she is facing these challenges and pray that our ministry will be able reach out and help her.  Thank you for your continued prayers and support for our ministry and for these young ladies in need.

New motorcycle!!!

Woooo-hoooo!!  Check them out!!  This new motorcycle was yet another donation from the very generous Vision of Hope United Methodist Church in Harrisonburg, Virginia.  This motorcycle will help our staff members Marisol and Jeanette with getting around Jarabacoa to reach the women we are working with.  This allows them to do visits to our local brothels, do job trainings, home childcare, discipleship, and more with women who are wanting to leave prostitution.  Thank you again Vision of Hope Church for this tremendous blessing to our ministry!  God is good! :) 

Check out our HUGE new fridge!!!

Can you believe this fridge!?!?  I don't think I've ever seen a bigger, more beautiful fridge in my life! (or at least not in the Dominican Republic).  It is GRANDOTE (kinda like my belly these days!)  Our current fridge is about 1/3 of this size.  Since our appliances have been on loan from Jarabacoa Christian School where Dave and I have been teaching these past 2 years and we need to return them at the end of the school year, we are now looking for these appliances to replace for the safehouse and are feeling so blessed about this first donation.

This refrigerator was donated by Vision of Hope United Methodist Church in Harrisonburg, Virginia.  We are so happy and thankful for the donation of this fridge to our new safehouse!  It's all ready to fill up with lots of food for the very pregnant lady house full of teenage girls. ;)  Thank you again for this donation!  We are so excited about each step that brings us closer to being ready to open our safehouse for girls in need!!

If YOU would like to make a donation to our safehouse, individually or with your family, sports team, church, school, workplace, or other organization, please email me at kristin.deyoung@gmail.com so we can discuss this together!  We also would be ready to help you with hosting a fundraiser in your hometown if you are interested.

The following are some items we still need/want for the safehouse:

• ·         Pillows, blankets, sheets
• ·         Stove/oven
• ·     Washing machine
• ·         Bed (queen sized bed for house parents Kristin and Dave)
• ·         Dresser
• ·         Patio Table
• ·         Curtains
• ·         Couch/futon
• ·         Bibles in Spanish/Creole
• ·         Discipleship materials for teen girls in Spanish
• ·         Christian music CD’s in Spanish
• ·         Movies in Spanish (with appropriate ratings)
• ·         Projector for showing movies
•       Teenage girls’ clothing items and shoes (modest and appropriate)
• ·         Arts and crafts materials for girls
• ·         Games and activities that are Spanish or easily bilingual
• ·         Toiletries, hair products, etc. for girls

If you would like to send a monetary donation, checks may be made out to "Priceless International" (with "DR safehouse" in the memo) and sent to:

Priceless International

PO Box 143

Wilmore KY 40390 

Thanks for your support and for teaming with our ministry!!

Love, peace, prayers, and Dominican sunshine,

Kristin and the Alianza team

The family of Y

Hi all, and thank you for following our blog!  I wanted to write to share with you a little bit about Y and her family who we have been working with.  Our outreach team members Marisol and Jeanette came across Y several months ago when she was working in town as prostitute.  She shared with them her strong desire to leave prostitution but her dilemma with raising her children while her husband has been away in prison.  Of her six children, four of these children live with her here in Jarabacoa, and are the ages of 1, 2, 3, and 4 years old.  She shared her struggle of trying to work in other professions, but how prostitution became the only means she was able to find to provide for her children and take care of her family.

When we started working with Y, she expressed her interest in cooking and considered the possibility of doing this as a business.  Luckily one of our team members, Marisol, had run her own business out of her home cooking and selling pastelitos (a yummy Dominican pastry usually filled with cheese, meat, or vegetables).  Marisol was able to train her in how to make pastelitos and the Alliance was able to provide her with the equipment to do this.

Now instead of prostituting, Y works in her neighborhood selling pastelitos and is able to provide for her family with dignity and integrity.  The team has also been working with her to help improve her family care and a missionary friend from the states, Rachel Lanouette, with the help of her church, has provided beautiful new clothing for her children, who previously could be found playing outside naked in the mud.  Y and her children live in poverty, but her situation is improving little by little.

In recent months, the four children have stayed at our safehouse so that Y could visit her husband in prison and attend his court hearings.  While four children under the age of four can be quite a handful, all of our team fell in love with each of them and loved the precious time we were able to spend with them.  We tried to always make their time at our house a special time by engaging them in fun games, activities, arts and crafts, and teaching them about Jesus's love for them.

After their last visit with us, Y brought a very special and unexpected person home with her - their father! Only the three older children remembered him as he had been in prison for around 10 months but it was a heartwarming family reunion to see them all together again and to see the joy in their father's eyes to be reunited with his family.  Y's husband stays he is determined now to stay away from drugs, and find work to support his family.

Marisol and Jeanette have been doing discipleship with Y and her husband and they are becoming more open and excited about the opportunity to know Christ.  We also helped one of the children to get on a waiting list for the preschool program at a local Christian school.  None of these children have any school experience and we pray that this dream will become a reality for Y's children in the future.  Our team continually prays for all of them and that their family will continue to grow in Christ in the future.

Thank you for those who support this ministry and pray for us.  Your support helps women like Y to start over and build a new life for her family.  Please continue to pray for this family and our team.  If you would like to know more about how you help Y and women like her, please email us.  Thanks so much!

Hard at work cooking pastelitos to sell!

Y and her family together again after almost a year apart!

Marisol doing discipleship with Y and her husband

Y's four precious little ones!

Welcome to our blog

Welcome to La Alianza blog!  We're glad you're here, and would love to team with you in our fight against sex trafficking in the Dominican Republic.  Please take some time to look around, and check out each of the headers at the top to look at each page and learn more about us and our mission.  You can follow our blog by entering your email address to the right.  If you have any questions, comments, or suggestions, or would like to help or support our ministry, please email me at kristin.deyoung@gmail.com.  Thanks! :)

Kristin DeYoung

Bienvenidos a nuestro blog de La Alianza!  Estamos felices que estas aqui, y nos gustaria coloborar contigo en nuestra lucha contra el comercio de sexo en la republica dominicana.  Por favor, tome un tiempo para ver a nuestro citio y echa un vistazo a cada uno de los encabezados en la parte superior para ver cada página y aprender más sobre nosotros y nuestra misión.  Puedes seguir nuestro blog introduciendo su dirección de correo electrónico a la derecha.  Si usted tiene alguna pregunta, comentario o sugerencia, o si desea ayudar o apoyar nuestro ministerio, por favor escríbame a kristin.deyoung @ gmail.com.  Muchas gracias!! 


Kristin DeYoung