A toddler’s excited squeal greets me as I step through the front door. Her deep brown eyes dance as she looks up at me from the living room floor, her attention momentarily taken away from the small plastic kitchen set in her chubby little hands.
Walking back to the kitchen area, someone’s singing slightly off-key to a song playing from an old black boom box stationed on the countertop.
“Hey, girl!” A number of women making handmade paper greet me as I enter the room. The toddler’s mother smiles as she uses a large yellow sponge to pat dry some of the paper pulp.
It has been a year now since I started working as a marketing manager at a small non-profit in Atlanta. The organization seeks to support women who are exiting the commercial sex industry — mostly street prostitution — through providing safe housing and employment opportunities, such as working in the organization’s paper making social enterprise.
When I got my degree in community development, I knew I wanted to work for an organization whose mission was to help people. But I never really expected that it would lead to getting to know ex-prostitutes as friends.
It’s not that I held anything against them. But I never imagined that I would have anything in common with someone who worked the street corners at night. I assumed my role in the organization would be to serve and give from a distance, theirs would be to gratefully receive. And that’s where our connection would end.
That is, until I started my job.
The stereotypes about prostitutes are pervasive. Many people think women who are sex workers want to be there; either they love to have sex or they’re just greedy for money.
But according to the U.S. Department of Justice, the average age of entry into the sex industry is between 12 and 14. The majority of sex workers have been raped more times than they can count. Most women are driven into sex work because they truly believe there is no other option.
Poverty is a leading factor; many women have young children to care for. Drugs and alcohol can become a coping mechanism to help deal with the trauma. As addiction develops, dependence on the sex trade deepens. And so the cycle continues.
Any kind of self-worth is shattered.
I now know several women who could quote these facts as their own life story. And though my role affords me distinct opportunities to support them, I’m overwhelmed when I realize that the supporting goes both ways. It’s not just about me helping them heal. They redeem my perspective on “the disadvantaged,” those who are seen as “less than” by society, and help me remember that at the core, they are just like me.
They genuinely ask me how I am and offer me their encouragement. They share their humour and invite me into their lives as a real friend — a joy I never imagined I would experience.
Light floods into the kitchen where the paper making station finds its temporary home.
I study the women’s faces as they joke together while they work. They have dreams just like I do. I know one woman wants to open her own restaurant, and another wants to have a food truck in the city. They struggle harder and face more obstacles than I probably ever will.
The reality is this: we are all broken. None of us can do it on our own. So let’s shatter our stereotypes and see the humanity behind the labels.
Photo (Flickr CC) by bron.
