Party music fills my ears. A strange world has now opened up to me. People pass by with stares of curiosity but continue on with the normal rhythm of life. I carefully study the scene around me. My fellow observers seem to be sprinting ahead of me. There is a tense blanket of silence around us. Speech has escaped us all.

Across the street there are girls, my fellow peers. They bring contrast to my long pants, T-shirt and ghost-white skin. I am the observer, the one who sits outside peering into their lives wondering how they got into this situation. So many questions, but after getting past the scantily dressed teenagers I see their faces, faces that are consumed by beautiful brown eyes.

In those eyes, a hollowness resides. They are not the carefree teens that I have surrounded myself with for so long. Their artificial smiles resides on their face in hopes that it covers up the pain, the shame, the hollowness.

What makes their lives any different from mine?

How did they get the crappy life?

What did they do to deserve this?

They sit there and are perused by a variety of men from all around the world. Chains that have strangled their own voice. I walk freely, never really seeing their normal lives. I can only observe small moments, but never experience such darkness. Hope a foreign concept while love is the enemy.

These heavy emotions were evident in their presence. So many emotions were observed with no way to completely understand what they typically feel.

That moment cut deep into the heart. It forced me to see the stark reality of these victims lives. All the observers there could no longer say that sex trafficking was a myth. It is impossible to minimize this trauma through strategic arguments that place blame on the victims.

If we actually take the time to look, look into their eyes, to observe their life, we would understand that this subject can not be taken lightly and must be stopped.