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Please Pray for Sheetal in India
Of India’s nearly 400 million under 18, over 70 million are child laborers, 10 million are bonded laborers (a form of slavery to pay off family debts), 13 million are homeless, and 2 million are street children without families. There are 575,000 child prostitutes and a massive trade of Bangladeshi and Nepali girls sold into prostitution. AIDS has spread rapidly and some estimate that by 2020 there could be 200 million people carrying HIV. Sheetal is one little girl who was saved from a life of prostitution.
Sheetal comes from the Red Light Area (RLA) in Pune. Her mother was a sex worker, who left the brothel and her daughter. Sheetal is about 8 years old, but both her age and birth date are unknown. However, she has been given April 24th as her birth date.
In Pune, soliciting clients on the streets after 11 p.m. is punishable, but a sex worker can carry out her activity in the house. Therefore a lot of boys and girls are used as what they call “runners” to bring clients in. One night Sheetal was sent at the pretext of getting betel leaves for her “mother’’ (madam), and someone caught her and tried to molest her. When she screamed, she was rescued by a man who brought her and left her in care of the staff in the RLA. If she had been sexually abused, she would have been sucked into the trade and most assuredly infected by sexually transmitted infections and HIV. Praise God for protecting her and bringing her to the Santvana Home on December 2nd.
Sheetal loves the children and takes very good care of the little ones in the home. She loves food; every day she is the first to tell the staff it is meal time. Best of all she likes dressing up. When the staff gets clothes for the kids, Sheetal is the first to come and see if she will get something. She is mentally underdeveloped for her age, but well cared for and loved by the caregivers at Santvana.
Please join us in praying for Sheetal, that she would know and experience the overwhelming and incomparable love of Jesus. Also pray for the other children at Santvana, for their health and for Dr. Edwards (Home’s director) as she cares for these precious children.
Click here to read an article from 2007 on Santvana Home and to find out how you can be involved.
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