Must Buy: Shoes, Clothes and a 12 Year Old Girl…?

I now know one thing for sure. Karachi is a … hotchpotch  Trees are jammed next to fly overs, buildings loom over wires and gardens alike. But one incident happened which I will probably never forget.

As we arrived at the hotel (my mom and I), we took the elevator to our room on the sixth floor. There was a man in there, and two very thin, shy looking girls who looked like they had arrived fresh from a very very small town no one knew about. The man with them had on Ozzy Osbourne -esque brown glasses, his shirt was open to his chest, revealing a gold chain and a forest of greasy chest hair, and he smoke two cigarettes at a time. My mom and I kept our distance, sensing trouble at once. 

Anyway during the elevator ride, the man kept telling the two girls random facts about himself, which painted him out to be a magnificent kind person…all tall tales, it was evident. And then as we stepped outside, we knew. There was something very shady going on. The two girls kept their distance from him, even though they were walking together and looked altogether completely scared and hiccupy. 

And so my mom told me that she was almost a 100 percent positive that this obsequious man was engaged in human trafficking. He had probably gone to a godforsaken village and brought the girls here, away from their families under false pretences. That would also explain why he kept tipping every random member of the hotel staff he saw. Sweeten the deal? This is apparently very rampant in Pakistan, but especially in Karachi, where no one questions anything. 

Human trafficking. Actual girls being taken and sold god knows where. 

I wish I could help. Those girls’ faces are stuck in my mind still, like rabbits caught in a death trap.