Highway to Hell: The
Road Where Childhoods are Stolen by Matt Roper
Injustice, human trafficking, sex slaves, all these words
have a ring to our ears that is neither pleasant nor helpful in human
flourishing. Traveling down Brazil’s
highway, BR-116, journalist Matt Roper and singer Dean Brody didn’t expect they’d
find miles and miles of roads filled with men seeking sex from young girls who
are trapped in prostitution. Not only is
the is the situation bleak but many times the very family members who are
supposed to protect and provide for their young girls push them out in the
streets to make money by selling their bodies.
Sickening, this drama plays out each day and each night on the long stretch
of road winding through Brazil. This
book, Highway to Hell, is Matt and
Brody’s experience first-hand with the ravages of prostitution along BR-116 and
the hope that they might be a part of a change for the better, for these girls
and for their families.
Take Josilene, for instance, a fifteen year old girl who
loves to hang out with her friends. Yet,
her friends offer her no hope for her life.
“The girls would stop by late at night, take Josilene out of her bed,
and go off to thumb for lifts on the motorway.
Sometimes she would be gone for days, ending up hundreds of miles
away. Josilene’s “friends”, it appeared,
would make her pay for the journey with her own body.” (153) Here Mom continually has tried to push her
away from these friends but the pull to fit into a group and be part of
something is so great. As the news came
that her Dad, whom she’d never met was possibly in another town, Matt and Dean
agreed to pick up Josilene in the morning for the trip. Come morning time, Josilene was nowhere to be
seen but with her friends in town down the road. It is the life of those caught in the midst
of slavery that breaks our hearts, yet freeing them takes a huge amount of
people.
Matt and Dean could not go back to their respective homes
without telling the world of this horrific world of enslavement and sex trading
that was going on in Brazil. Matt taught
a number of YWAM groups about the situation on BR-116 and interest was soon
sparked enough to have groups committed to helping these towns along the
highway. Yet, the distressing thing was
getting people to see that child prostitution needs to be stopped. One lady named Rita comments in the book
that, “Child prostitution’s just part of life here,” Rita told us. People who have grown up here don’t see it
like you and I do, even the Christians.
Most people have stopped seeing it at all.” (168) Failing to see the gross injustice and
degradation of human life is not something we should stop seeing as
Christians. Yet, this is the kind of
view that people take when they are comfortable in their own skin, not looking
after others.
Thanks to Monarch Books and Kregel Publications for the copy
of this in exchange for an honest review.
Comments
Post a Comment