finding free

This whole wearing the same dress every day thing is kind of fun. I think it's easier to get dressed in the morning (less choices) and it makes me think throughout the day about what I'm doing (especially when someone says "I like your dress" and I explain what I'm doing to them!). Since the question has been asked a ton lately...I AM planning on washing this dress. Please don't think I'm planning on stinking my way through Lent. I know I've said it already, but I wanted to make that extra clear. Now, on to Day 2 and Day 3.

Thursday (Day 2), I decided to add a shirt underneath my dress. Seeing as my outfit was lacking in color, I added my pink sparkly Toms (you just can't see them). I'm using a self-timer on my camera, so I miss my feet most of the time in pictures. In my dorm room, I prop it up on one of my bed posts and aim it towards my bathroom (which has the best lighting). In my room at home, I'm still figuring it out. My room is a little messy. Today (Day 3), I added a skirt over my dress. I needed color after two days with black and gray. It was just the right length and worked out great.

Today, I want to bring our focus to India, where As Our Own does most of their work.

• There are 25.7 million orphans throughout India. One of the reasons why human trafficking is so prevalent in a place like India is this large vulnerable population. If orphans don't have other families to take care of them, they live out on the streets or in orphanages. This makes it especially easy for traffickers to target them. After all, who's going to notice a street child is missing? 
• Trafficking of minor girls is a $1-billion-a-year industry in Mumbai. Little girls—some as young as 7 or 8 years old—are being forced into the sex trade. 70% of women are forced into prostitution and 20% of these are child prostitutes.
• In the case of sex trafficking, it's kind of a given that babies are going to be born and children are going to be raised in brothels. 95% of girls born in the district become enslaved. Many girls are enslaved in the sex trafficking industry not by their own choice. They were born into it. When their mothers are captives in the industry, their daughters have no choice. There's not another option.

In a place like India with extreme poverty, it can be hard to imagine a hope and future for these women and girls. But, As Our Own has begun working in the red light district to try and talk to mothers before they "sell" their daughters into the trade (it is a business transaction, but it is often by force or coercion- not by choice).  They try to rescue these daughters from the cycle. They call these girls "daughters" and raise them to be beautiful, educated women in society. They give these girls a hope and a future that they would otherwise not have. They let little girls be little girls.