Selling is a way of life for many. We are everyday salesmen and women even if sales is not our formal profession.

We sell our brand. The identity with which we desire others to view us.

We sell our beliefs. The personal viewpoints with which we so adamantly embrace and believe in.

We sell our ideas. The creative solutions with which we believe will help change our businesses, our communities, our environment, our lives, our world.

But for some … they sell their bodies, whether they want to or not.

I recently bought a used book from a vendor in the streets of Bangkok, Thailand, entitled Sex Slaves: The Trafficking of Women In Asia by Louise Brown.

Ironic that a smart, journalistic book that delves deep into the splintered human dynamic and incredible travesties that humankind is capable of was sold in Bangkok, the major sex capitol of the world where sex tourism is as big and popular as ever.

When sex is blatantly sold in the streets as if one is selling lemonade on a corner, it’s hard to ignore the obvious trappings of mankind. And who does the trapping? We do.

We perpetuate the vicious cycle of incredible evils in the world such as sex trafficking and prostitution by turning a blind eye and not addressing such calamities like this particular topic. And it’s not just topics like these that grab folks’ attention and causes them to sigh heavily and wish this would just stop. We’d have to do something about it. The how is left up to you.

One girl trafficked into prostitution is one too many. But the reasons behind why were depressingly sober.

For instance, 60% of Thai families that willingly send their daughters to brothels do not do so because of acute poverty. Instead, they were motivated by their desire to own consumer goods such as television and videos. (Ecumenical Council on Third World Tourism, Caught In Modern Slavery:Tourism and Child Prostitution in Asia, 1992)

And this is where our consumerist and materialistic tendencies are as destructive as ever. Minimalism is not the end-all-be-all answer. As if the number of things we own or living out of a bag is all that matters.

The human heart’s capacity to love, protect and cherish our fellow brothers and sisters is.

When we can stoop so low as to trade our own daughters for products, like some sort of cheap commodity, there is no wonder our human race has been damned from the very beginning.

I see women’s hardened faces, many which are no older than 14 years old, with blank stares, heavily made up and in dresses and high heels 2 sizes too big. They line the dirty, garbage-filled streets, selling their broken bodies next to food cart vendors selling bowls of noodles and rice.

I see the desperate yearning for customers, because customers mean money. But beneath this yearning is a deeper and far greater desire, one which cannot be quenched lest one is freed from such a bonding and tragic lifestyle.

This desire is raw, uninhibited, blazing and fiery freedom.

You and I, in comparison, are incredibly free.

But they, these girls — they are not. They don’t need another customer. What they need is freedom.