It’s a rainy Friday night and this bar-lined alley would usually be hoppin’ by now. I’ve come to take advantage of free wi-fi and to grab some dinner nearby at one of my favorite little restaurants.

I also brought my camera with me, hoping that I’ll be able to work up the guts to pull it out and snap a few of this street that saddens me deeply.

This is one of the many side streets lined with bars in this little beach town* of Thailand. It’s still early by beach-life standards—it’s only 9:30pm. Even on weeknight I’ve seen it crowded, and I hear the craziness continue late into the evening from my room.

There are a few guys around … bartenders, I assume.  Each bar has a minimum of 2 or 3 girls, all “dressed up” and ready to do what it takes to persuade any potential customer to come to their bar and not the next. The rain has certainly taken a toll on business tonight and the girls seem extra aggressive with the few people who have walked by.

One young couple begins to walk down the street, and it doesn’t take long before they realize what kind of street they’ve come to. They glance at one another, nod, and turn around to walk away.

Pretty much anything goes once you’ve entered this little street. It seems there is an unspoken rule of looking the other way when you see something you know you shouldn’t.

Eventually I muster up the courage to pull out my camera. I’ve brought a funny-lookin’ tripod contraption and I decide to use that as an ice-breaker. I ask the 3 guys and two girls around me if they’ve ever seen one like it.

The ice-breaking works.

They look at me in confusion and shake their heads no. One of the girls says in her broken English, “Oh, it’s for the camala!”

Knowing full well what she means, the guys all start to tease her. “Camala?! Ha ha. You mean camERa!” We all have a little laugh about the language differences and I am thankful that the air is clear between us. Still, knowing that all eyes are on me, I find myself wanting to quickly grab a couple shots and get outta there.

It doesn’t take long, though, before one of the girls chimes in, “You take picture o’ me!”

The lighting is hardly conducive to a decent portrait and I know that I will never be able to use the picture (for their protection).** However, I know that every girl wants to be found beautiful and if I can offer one simple little positive insight into their beauty by the appropriate use of my camera tonight, I will.

I snap the photo and show them on the screen. Their quick response is, “oooh, we so sexy!”

My heart breaks.

The smile that was on my face drops quickly into a frown and I can’t seem to help it. It’s not even really the words she’s said. It’s the way that she’s said them and the meaning that I know is behind them.

One new world-traveling friend recently said to me, “It’s just a part of life. You’ve got to accept that.”

I can’t.

I know that there’s more to life for these two girls than the struggle to be found sexy tonight by some stranger. I know that their need for me to affirm their sexiness is coming from a very twisted and skewed view of what makes them worth being around. I know that they are young girls with all kinds of potential even though the lies they’re being fed daily are drowning those hopes and dreams inside them. I know that they love to laugh at their own little silly mistakes just like I do, and that when it comes down to it, they’re not so different from me or another other girl.

I want more for them … and I refuse to accept that this is just the way that life is for them. They are not objects to be bought tonight. They are someone’s daughter … someone’s friend … someone’s sister.

So, eventually I take a few more pictures, laugh a little more with them, and then say my goodbyes.

I can’t help but wonder who they’ll become. I wonder if/how/when they might get picked up by a trafficker and where they might be taken or what they might be forced to do. I wonder what it would take to get them out of a brothel and into an aftercare program if that happened … and I wish that all my wondering was more of a far cry from the reality that could hit them at any moment.

I’ve left these two girls tonight, but I’m not sure they will ever really leave my heart, my thoughts, and my prayers.

*The name of the town will be withheld for security reasons.

**It’s far too common that we unknowingly further exploit someone in the condition they’re in by the way that we photograph and communicate through image and I take every precaution I can in this area. Also, with a location and a face, posting the images of these girls on the web opens them up to severe risk of pedifiles finding them and trafficking them.