Ellilta-Women at Risk

My friends saw her on a drive through Addis. She looked about 12 years old. Dressed in a pretty red dress like she was waiting for a ride to a friend’s birthday party. But she wasn’t off to a party. And it was after midnight. That delicate young girl was working. Waiting for a man willing to pay less than a dollar to take any innocence she had left. And she wasn’t the only one.

There are an estimated 200,000 prostitutes working in Addis Ababa. It’s been referred to as the Bangkok of Africa. Prostitution in Ethiopia is not legal, per se, but authorities tend to look the other way. Most of the women working in bars in Addis are prostitutes. Approximately 75% of them are also HIV+. Sadly, many of the men taking advantage of these girls and women are diplomats, foreign businessmen and NGO workers.

Many of the girls and women forced into prostitution and exploited by Addis’ sex trade are orphans, former child brides and victims of abuse and domestic violence. Many parents in the countryside have been persuaded to let their daughters travel to the city with middlemen advertising job opportunities as household servants with plans to turn them over to pimps. Some girls are abducted and trafficked. Many young women travel to the city on their own looking for employment, only to find themselves alone in the city with no work, no place to stay, and no money to get back to their villages. Others are lured by pimps as soon as they get off of the bus at the Merkato. There are as many sad stories as there are women to tell them, but generational poverty and financial hopelessness is a common thread that runs through most of them.

Serawit “Cherry” Teketel’s heart was burdened for Addis’ street women during the year that she spent looking for work after graduating from university (Ethiopia’s employment rate is currently estimated at 60%). She reflected on her own difficult job search, despite her education, skills and qualifications, and realized how much more difficult, impossible even, it must be for the street women—broken, hopeless and lacking education (most vocational programs in Addis require a minimum of 8 years’ formal schooling)—to escape from prostitution. Teketel partnered with Wendy and Andrew Brown (USA), Yvonne Mildred (UK) and Ruth and Andy Meakins (UK) to form Ellilta/Women at Risk (WAR).

WAR sends representatives out into the streets to meet prostitutes. They visit the women on the streets and at bars and nightclubs, often inviting them into a van for tea, cookies and conversation. Their initial contacts are focused on building friendships with the women. Some of the women quickly express their desperation and urgency to leave the sex trade. Others are less trusting of WAR’s motives and take more time to open up. Once there is a foundation of relationship, the women (often, girls) are given the opportunity to leave the sex worker trade in exchange for committing to enter WAR's year-long program of counseling, training and teaching. Accepting the offer requires a lot of courage, particularly for those women who have been trafficked and work for pimps, but in every case where the women are in bondage to fear and feelings of worthlessness.

The physical, emotional and psychological damage of prostitution runs deep. WAR’s counselors work to help restore the women’s self-respect, dignity, and hope. The women are assisted with family reconciliation. Their children are cared for or enrolled in school while they are in the program. In many cases, medical assistance in managing HIV is provided and some cases, addiction recovery is also a component. WAR partners with employers that train the women in employable skills while taking their educational and social background into consideration. By the time they complete the program, many of the women have developed work ethics, learned an employable skill, learned to manage household finances, and been placed in a job. At that point, they are transitioned out of the program.  Over 90% of women (360+) who have passed through WAR's program have succeeded in permanently leaving prostitution and reintegrating into society.

Back in October, I had an opportunity to visit the E-WAR center on my trip to Addis. We hung out in the courtyard and visited with the women and girls who were currently in the program. We sipped hot tea and they taught us some trendy and traditional Ethiopian dance moves. They were surprised at how old I was. And I was surprised at how young many of them were. They are precious girls and women—daughters of the KING!

It’s heart-wrenching to know where these women have come from and the pain they have endured. I’m sickened to think of how they’ve been used, abused, tortured, objectified, shamed, devalued and degraded. They’ve seen and experienced things my brain can’t even stretch to comprehend. But what they have been robbed of, the Lord is restoring. The women we met at the WAR center are survivors, on a journey from despair to hope and joy. Their stories are testimonies of redemption. And there are thousands more who still need to be reached.  These videos were produced by Samaritan's Purse to share WAR's mission and feature some of the women whose lives have been changed by this ministry:

You can learn more about Women At Risk and how to partner with them by visiting their website HERE. Tomorrow, I’ll share about FashionABLE, one of the great companies that supports WAR by providing funding for its programs and by training and employing its women.