It was about 8 pm when we filed in to the dance bar. We had spent time walking around Thamel, the tourist section of Kathmandu, and asking God for direction, and this is the place that he led us to. I sat down on a couch and my eyes were drawn to the flashing lights that highlighted the girl on the stage. She was beautiful, with her long ponytail and dark eyes. The tight dress that barely covered her butt and high, high heels were attempts to attract the attention of someone in the audience. The dancer stepped down after the song ended, and so began an endless cycle of girls dancing to loud American remixes. I ordered an overpriced Coke, and as expected, bought another one for a girl and pointed to have her join my table. We talked to her for a while and she told us that she is 26 and has worked at the bar for over a year now. She used to work in a beauty parlor, but couldn’t make enough money so she came to the dance bar as a last resort to make a living. She says she doesn’t like working at the dance bar but we can tell she loves to dance, as she sways back and forth to the music. She pulls out her phone and shows us pictures of her little nephew and talks about how she loves her brother and his family so much. In the middle of our conversation, she looks up at the girl dancing and announces that she has to go; her turn to dance is coming soon. Moments later, another girl comes and sits down next to us. She is shy and doesn’t speak much English, but we do our best to communicate with her. She is 18 years old but she looks much younger. She said that she has only been at the dance bar for 2 weeks but she already hates it. We asked her if she likes to dance and she just shook her head no. She told us that her family lives in a far away village and that she came here because she needed money. When we asked her what she likes, she said “Burgers! Buff burgers, chicken burgers, HAMburgers!!!” We spent the rest of our time talking to this sweet girl in a blue dress about music, food, and Thamel. We left the bar that night with both of the girls numbers and plans to meet up with them sometime soon.
The next morning we called one of our friends here in Kathmandu and had her come to Thamel to translate. Plans fell through with the 26 year old girl and she didn’t show up. Hours later when it was time to meet up with the 18 year old, she didn’t show up either. Our translator was determined though and so she kept calling her until she and two of her friends from the dance bar met up with us at a chicken and burger place. We all sat around a big table and spent the next two hours eating and laughing and of course taking lots of selfies. At one point, music came on over the speaker in the restaurant and they all jumped up and taught us a Nepali dance. There was so much laughter and then many hugs when we had to say goodbye. Another date was made and more time was spent with these three girls and there the question was, looming over them. The elephant in the room that we were all aware of but didn’t know how to approach. Do you want to leave the dance bars?
Right now, we are working with a ministry that is focused on rescuing women and children out of bad situations. The women in my squad have had a focus on going to cabin restaurants and dance bars, and befriending the girls there. Cabin restaurants are places where men can go to “order food” that is extremely overpriced. They are then taken to a stall where they are allowed to do whatever they paid for with the “waitress” that they choose, whether it is to just spend time with her, feeling her up, or having sex with her. Her job is to sit in the room with him and to allow him to do whatever he wants as long as he is paying. These girls are often not allowed to leave the restaurant or have very limited freedom, and they are often trapped. Dance bars are bars where men come and pay for the time of a woman that catches his eye while she is dancing. What he is allowed to do with her time ranges depending on the dance bar, but the truth is the same as in cabin restaurants: these women are objects to be purchased and used. They are often very young, sometimes 15 or 16, and they often feel like they don’t have any other options. None of the girls that we have talked to have said anything other than they don’t like their job and they wish that they could do something else. Prostitution is illegal here, yet you can walk down a road with so many cabin restaurants and dance bars and know that countless women throughout Kathmandu are selling their bodies every night to the highest bidder. This is of course an issue all over the world, but right here, in the city I am living in, girls my age or younger are being used. And they want out.
This is where the organization that we are working with comes in. They have a women’s center where women can come to live and get out of their bad situations. They can go to school with other women their age, learn a skill like cosmetology, cooking or tailoring, and they are given a safe place to stay. The idea is that you can’t just convince a girl to leave her job in the sex trade without having a plan for her afterwards, and so this is the plan. If you can get her to leave the bar or restaurant, she can live at the center. So we go into these places and buy these girls. Their time, their bodies... they are ours for a while. We give them a break from their lives and let them just be girls for an hour or two as we drink juice and coke and talk about our hopes and dreams. We laugh with them and hug them and then we tell them about the women’s center and ask if they want out.
We are still waiting for an answer from our girl on if she will leave. She said that she and her two best friends from the dance bar are all in it together, and she will only leave if both of them come with her. She said that she would give us an answer next time we see her, which will probably be in just a few days.
This is where you come in. Please, get on your knees and pray that these girls will open their eyes and hearts. Let them see how capable they are of walking out and give them a desire to do something more with their lives. The lives of two 18 year olds and a 19 year old are in the balance right now, and so are the lives of many women all around the city and the world. Everything that they are told is that they have to try to earn the attention of men and that their worth comes from how many times they can be abused, but we know that they are priceless and so, so precious. They deserve more than the life that they are living right now.
I want nothing more than to be able to write another blog that says they quit the bars and are starting their new lives at the women’s center, where they are shown God’s endless love for them. Even if they decide to stay, there is still so much hope. We were walking down one of the roads in Thamel before we went in to a dance bar one night, and Brian, our leader stopped and got very quiet. He said, “the last time I was on this road, there were 4 dance bars, and now they have all shut down.” God is doing big things here. He loves these women and will stop at nothing to pursue them and rescue them. What will happen to the 26 year old that I talked about meeting? I don’t know. We are going to keep trying to contact her, but the truth is that she has to truly want out. Brian told us that it is easier to get girls out who haven’t been working there for long, because the longer they stay, the more they believe the lies that they are faced with every day. Although heartbreaking, we still have the hope that God can reach the most broken people in this city and restore them completely.
I just want to end with the bridge of a song called “Reckless Love” that I feel like accurately represents the love of God and his heart for the women in the city and for you.
There’s no shadow you won’t light up
No mountain you won’t climb up
Coming after me
There’s no wall you won’t kick down
No lie you won’t tear down
Coming after me
Oh, the overwhelming, never ending, reckless love of God
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