It‘s estimated that more than half a million people are forced to sell their bodies in Mumbai. Most are kidnapped from small villages in Nepal， Bangladesh， and other rural areas. Many of the women are devadasi， worshippers of a Hindu goddess who were forced into prostitution by their “priests.” Some of the prostitutes are male hijras， castrated men. They are packed into filthy tenement houses and forced to have sex with at least four men a night. They have spread the AIDS virus rapidly， and millions have died.
At one point I was taken to the red-light district known as the “Street of Cages” in Mumbai to see the suffering there and to speak to the victims of slavery. I had been invited by the Reverend K. K. Devaraj， founder of Bombay Teen Challenge， which works to rescue people from sexual slavery and help them find better， healthy lives.
Uncle Dev， who also operates a home for AIDS orphans， feeding programs， medical centers， an HIV/AIDS clinic， and a rescue operation for drug-addicted “street boys，” had seen my videos， so he hoped that I could serve as a change agent in Mumbai. He wanted me to convince women working as prostitutes to flee slavery and to move into his shelters. Reverend Devaraj says that each enslaved woman is a “precious soul and valuable pearl.”
Bombay Teen Challenge is such a force for good in the slums of Mumbai that the pimps and madams allow Uncle Dev and his team， who are Christians， to come in and speak to them， even though most are Hindu. They welcome that calming influence even though the Bombay Teen Challenge team constantly tries to convince the prostitutes to accept Christ and to leave the brothels for better lives.
Bit by bit， this ministry works to change the hearts of these enslaved women. The average girl is kidnapped between the age of ten and thirteen. They are lured from small rural villages， and most are very na？ve. If a girl is wary， the recruiters try to win over her parents， telling them she will earn fifty times the average wage. Or， sadly， they buy the girl from her parents， an all-too-common occurrence. The people who recruit and transport them are the first in a long line of cruel abusers. Once the girls are captive， the pimps take control， telling them， “You work for us now， whether you like it or not.”
While in Mumbai， we interviewed several former sex slaves who’d been freed by Bombay Teen Challenge. Their stories， each one heartbreaking， are unfortunately not unusual. If they refused to be prostitutes， they were beaten， raped， and put in cages in dark and filthy underground compounds where they couldn‘t even stand up. There they were starved， abused， and brainwashed all the more until they became submissive. Then they were sent to the brothels where they were told that they had been purchased for seven hundred U.S. dollars and that they had three years to work off the debt as prostitutes. Former sex slaves told us they’d been required to have sex hundreds of times， with two dollars applied to their debt each time.
Most think they have no other options. The pimps tell them that their families will never take them back because of the shame they‘ve brought to them. Many contract sexually transmitted diseases or have children as the result of their prostitution and so they feel they have nowhere else to go.