Today we visited a women’s shelter, an NGO, which deals with former sex workers in Mysore. It was gut wrenching. I found myself in tears and can’t describe why. I did my best to not cry in front of the women because I didn’t want them to see my tears. I’m not sure why I didn’t want them to see. It’s weird because I wanted them to know I cared but at the same time I don’t want them to think I feel sorry for them. I know that when I’m going through something tough, I don’t want pity but support. Of course, I’ve never gone through something as tough as them but that’s my rationale.
They sang a song for our group and it made me so emotional. While the song was beautiful, it was their faces. I was sitting quite close to them and would look into their faces, their eyes, as they sang. They were all blank. It was as if they had ceased feeling anything.
The center was for eighteen to forty year old women and I must say that some of these women looked far older than forty. Their lives have aged them greatly. Others looked shockingly younger than eighteen. The women’s children are allowed to live at the center too. One of the youngest women I saw there, she looked far younger than eighteen, had a daughter who was at least four years old.
A center such as this gives so much hope to these women whose families may have sold them into sex work or husbands abused and left them. At the same time, these women leave the center as marked women. Is it possible for them to ever get married or re-marry? Their children receive food and education while at the center but what happens when their moms leave?
This trip impacted me in a way that hadn’t happened yet. I want to go back and actually spend some time with the women. It’s amazing how much they touched me, how much of their energy I felt, without a word exchanged between us. Their faces said so much by not saying anything at all.
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