A story of how a Cambodian girl was forced into prostitution begins with the following words:

When she was 5, her father died. “After that, my mother changed,” Sreypov says.

I was immediately reminded of a 12 year old girl I met earlier this year. Her father died, and now her mother supports the family by collecting and reselling trash. It’s work reserved for the most desperate people. I learned that this girl had recently considered getting a job at a hostess bar where she could earn a hundred dollars or more a night being a “girl friend” for guys who prefer to think they aren’t hiring prostitutes. My friend, a Cambodian pastor who runs the school that she attends, persuaded her to stay in school. I saw her on my last trip, but I didn’t get an update. I hope they are still enduring.

Read the full article about girls forced into sex slavery in Southeast Asia. Here’s how it begins:

Sreypov Chan, a young Cambodian woman with a feisty laugh and a love of Kelly Clarkson songs, has a recurring dream: She’s being chased by gangsters. They catch her and throw her into a filthy, cockroach-infested room. She knows what will happen next: She will be tortured—whipped with metal cables, locked in a cage, shocked with a loose electrical wire—and then gang raped.

Sreypov has lived this dream.

When she was 7 years old—an age when most girls are going to slumber parties—she was sold to a brothel in Phnom Penh, Cambodia’s capital city, to work as a sex slave. The woman who made the sale: her mother.

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I watched all 8 minutes and 33 seconds of this on the edge of my seat.

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I just finished reading an article entitled “Arrested Development” in Prism Magazine. The author, James Thomas, gives an overview of four books about development that attempt the change the game.

He starts out with The End of Poverty by Jeffrey Sachs, a well known book calling the wealthy nations to give more — much more — money to stimulate development in the poorer countries of the world. He casually slips in that Jeffrey Sachs helped the countries of the former Soviet Union in their painful (some would say “misconceived”) transition to capitalism, indicating the direction the rest of the article will take.

The next three books come from a variety of sources, but they all share a common belief that international aid isn’t working and giving more isn’t the answer. I’ve read the first book, The White Man’s Burden, by William Easterly. The other do are on my wish list at Amazon: Africa Unchained, by George Ayittey and Dead Aid: Why Aid Is Not Working and How There Is a Better Way for Africa, by Dambisa Moyo.

Thomas ends with a reluctant swipe at Bono and his very popular ONE Campaign. I love U2 and appreciate Bono’s efforts to translate his fame into benefits for people in need, but I wish he would read these three books, go meet the authors, and reconsider his approach. Perhaps it is the Achilles heel of a rock star to think big and miss the most important thing because it’s too small. The poorest people of the world can do more with freedom, opportunity, and money invested in countless small ventures that bubble up from below than with lavish gifts of money poured down from above on their supposed leaders without accountability or even economic incentives for the desired results.

Read the full article for more details about the books. It’s time to change the international aid game, and I like the way the latter three books are heading. Check out Prism Magazine for articles from a Christian point of view emphasizing holistic love and justice in the world.

UPDATE #1

This just in (from William Easterly’s blog today):

First, who is “we”? It seems like whoever “we” are, “we” must have unconstrained power to implement “the answer”, so “we” sounds like authoritarian leaders (national autocrats or World Bank officials dictating conditions).

Second, are “we” going to allow poor people to choose their own paths? Of course not, because “we” already know the “right answer” for them.

So this question only makes sense in approach to development that is authoritarian and paternalistic, using Top Down Planning, which in fact has been the prevailing – but unsuccessful – approach to development for six decades.

The paradox of development economics is that Development does NOT require any one person (Expert, Leader, or Aid Official) to have a comprehensive understanding of how to achieve Development (sort of like how evolution managed to happen on its own before Darwin).

I always find Easterly’s reasoning so refreshing, something like, “We don’t have all the answers, so it’s no use trying to impose a solution, but that doesn’t mean we must give up hope.”

A little further down in the post he includes this gem:

Growth is innovation, and you can’t know in advance how to do the innovative thing, or else it wouldn’t be an innovation. Development is BOTTOM-UP outcome of lots of unpredictable individual successes and failures.

UPDATE #2

I can’t help thinking that Easterly’s logic applies in a totally different sphere of life: the way we do religion (experts providing solutions from the top down, offering freedom under their control, with seemingly altruistic motives, and distrusting what would emerge from the bottom up by “the Spirit of God” if they truly allowed that option).

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Does a stressful lifestyle lead to mindless behavior and strip away your ability to lead and achieve goals? Here are some conclusions from a study of rats (h/t Appel) subjected to constant stress:

On the one hand, regions of the brain associated with executive decision-making and goal-directed behaviors had shriveled, while, conversely, brain sectors linked to habit formation had bloomed.

In other words, the rodents were now cognitively predisposed to keep doing the same things over and over, to run laps in the same dead-ended rat race rather than seek a pipeline to greener sewers. “Behaviors become habitual faster in stressed animals than in the controls, and worse, the stressed animals can’t shift back to goal-directed behaviors when that would be the better approach,” Dr. Sousa said. “I call this a vicious circle.”

Chilling. I wonder how many people here in Japan fit this description, and I wonder about myself. How do you get out of a stress rut and recover the ability to focus and decide?

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Read about one man’s struggle to care for his wife and hold his family together. I heard about this from a trusted source. I read the story and wanted to pass it on. If enough people read and do the same (and leave a small donations), it could make a difference.

http://savestevesfamily.blogspot.com/

You can help by posting links on your blog, in Facebook, etc. If enough people get involved, then even small donations will add up. I gave a few dollars with this hope in mind.

Steve, Marian, and the kids

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