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Channel / Source:
TEDx Talks
Published: 2017-08-25
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O-N-c1StpJA
I grew up in a bubble not in a physical sense of course but in the mental sense but ever since I was a kid I knew there were problems I knew I had to face them but they're not my problems I did have to face them I wasn't the one who is at fault so why is it my responsibility ever since I was a kid I
realize that I had a lot of opportunities that other children today I can travel the world I had a family to go home to when I went home there was food waiting on the table I could go to schools that a lot of kids can even dream of and in another sense I have the same opportunities that a lot of my peers did except for one
there's one opportunity that I never realized was so special my mother and father had always told me it was important to give back they told me that I was privileged but I was lucky but I don't think I ever realize how lucky I was on Saturdays and Sundays my mother and I have my mother and father bought me the orphanages to public housing and when I
was a kid I'm going to admit up front right now that I didn't want to go I would rather stay home I would rather hang out with my friends my friends would come to school on Monday morning and tell me oh I did this I did that and I would be silent because honestly I didn't want to do it luckily that change my mother came to
me a couple years ago and told me you know what we're going on a trip and I said well okay he said that we were gonna visit ten different orphanages in seven days and I said okay as any other child would do I met some people there they changed my life I don't know what it was about the maybe was the way they smiled at the
face of adversity maybe it was their talent for music but something about them set out to me they didn't have a home and I said you know what I'm going to help the money to donate money I went to my mom and said mom how are you going to help the mum is there any way you can help them said no is that what you mean
you have the money if you have the people you have the contacts why why tell me to do and she says wait but you have the passion and so that night I went home and I wrote a letter to over a hundred people saying next month is my birthday instead of gifts please for my ninth birthday giving give me money for the we raise ninety six
million and when that happened a lot of people came to visit you should be proud of yourself and I said well yes thank you because they realize that as much as I was happy that it helped them it was a short term thing that was all I had done what else am I supposed to do coincidentally a couple weeks after my birthday we were learning %HESITATION
we start a new unit at school social justice and during the unit we touched briefly on something called human trafficking I don't know what it was about it but I went home and I said that I wanted to know more about it I sat down opened up a complete I'm %HESITATION open up my mom's computer my mom sat next to me and I research human trafficking
and I realize that it wasn't just you and your hubby getting it was child trafficking and it wasn't just child trafficking it was child labor it was child prostitution it was children my age being sold for sex and I looked and I thought okay but it doesn't happen in Indonesia I found out that a hundred and fifty thousand children are trafficked every year in Indonesia I
found out that forty three point five percent of these children are younger fourteen years old until a couple months ago that was my age now it's younger than me and I know for a lot of us what is this but available numbers percentages the two sticks who has time to think about that so I'm going to do you a favor least I hope it is going
to tell your story I have a friend a friend I still do it I'd like to think I met her I first met her three years ago she was eighteen years old and her name let's call her mullah when I met her I don't think I realized what story I was about to listen to she told me but you know what she had got married at
the age of ten she had given birth at the age of eleven and then she was traffic at the age of twelve I said well how did that happen she said she and her friends had been sitting and eating in a restaurant they had been talking about how they were going to end up supporting their children their husbands a woman came over to them and said
%HESITATION I over heard what you were saying you don't need jobs I have the perfect job for you her friends immediately agreed they had no other choice Muller herself but we are are you sure she was hesitant but what other option did you have so degrees she agrees and they get on a truck that night and the child will for hours and hours and hours and
hours and they're picking up other girls along the way and nobody knows where they're going but they have no other choice because they don't know where they are they can just stop the truck and get out they finally reached their destination my other friends were traffic and the child labor mother told me the transition from one house are from each house every month she said there
is one man who would hit her with this table there was one man who threatened to rape her she was split up former friends she was lost and alone and as I listened I don't understand how this could happen so close to me I asked well what happened to your friends I know you escaped but where are your friends and she said we don't know the
first friend we never found the second friend we found but not in the state we wished she was pregnant and dead in the back of a dump truck now was one of the first stories I never heard first survivor story that move me so much that's all my faking to be an NGO that helps children are trafficked into prostitution sex trafficking a lot of people ask
why is that so important why did I as a young child feel the need for an actual NGO if that rumor phase one of the only fully Indonesian non governmental organizations that help children more traffic into sex brought sex trafficking in all three programs prevention rescue and rehabilitation were Indonesian a lot of people ask why prevention why not just rescue and rehabilitation like a lot of
other NGOs because you see this is a cycle that is already happening in Indonesia cycle that keeps going and going and most of us don't even realize that it's not about getting girls out of the cycle it's about stopping the cycle completely it's about giving opportunities to people who don't have any not just educational opportunities but also vocational opportunities easy under prevention teaching people their rights
telling people that you have rights and you have to stand up for them how many people have to hear her children yes how many people here know the four basic rights that the children that your children have under Indonesian law and inside it see like one person you see it under Indonesian law we are four basic rights not only that that's not our only right it's
that Indonesia is one of the countries that signed the United nation rights of the child which has over fifty right for children that can be applied and this is the first right that can be applied for anybody under eighteen years old and this isn't even all of it how many records do you think are violated right now in our country people come and they tell me
that well is it really happening where does that happen are you sure it happens here because I've never seen it before I told you earlier that I was in disbelief of human trafficking because it had never touched me personally it was never in my community at least that's what I thought as I grew up as I worked and the mafia I realize that actually it kind
of did you see I told you earlier that Saturdays and Sundays were spent in orphanages and public housings where I would switch email with emails with the kids I wouldn't talk to them regularly but sometimes I would shoot off even say hi I'm coming this weekend I'll meet you there they say yes but there are days when I'd come and they wouldn't be there and I
would ask what do you know where she is do you know where they went can can I contact or some way and they would don't look me in the eye they would say all I I don't know and I dropped it and now I know that a lot of these girls they left to find jobs and most of them had ended up selling their bodies and
that is the one regret I've had for years that I dropped a lot of these conversations human trafficking happens in our communities earlier I told you about my friend mullah and I know for most of you when I sold when I told you about how loud you automatically thought of a place far far away from here yes that happens but not here that happens all the
time and you know where my what happened it happen within walking distance of this place it happens in your communities human trafficking child trafficking child prostitution happens in Indonesia and it's time we understand it's a problem it's time we understand that sex should not be a taboo sex education is important not only for children who have the means to education but also for children who have
