Changing lives on the 'exploitation highway'

Matt Roper thought of himself as a Daily Mirror “hardened news reporter” but, driving through Brazil’s outback, he was shocked to see an 11-year-old girl at the roadside selling sex. He had stumbled on the 2,700-mile “exploitation highway” running the length of the country. He was sure “God led us to that remote roadside that night” and vowed to act …

“We found Leilah again, but in just a year she had become hopelessly addicted to cocaine and rejected our offers of help.

“We started setting up projects in towns along the ‘corridor of child prostitution’, offering girls a safe place during the day, people who cared for them and could help them find a way out, and activities like dance, which would help them see their true worth and potential. We called the charity Meninadança, or ‘Girldance’ in Portuguese, and the safe houses, which we painted bright pink, became known as ‘Pink Houses’.

“I remember when we opened the doors of our first Pink House in the town of Medina for the first time, the look of both amazement and disbelief on the girls’ faces as they walked around. Everything on the inside was different from what they saw and heard on the outside. For many girls it was the first time in their lives they had been told they were not objects to be swapped and sold, or that they had a Father God who loved them more than they could imagine.

“When many of the girls first stepped inside the dance room and saw themselves in the wall-to-wall mirror they immediately ran out. Their self-esteem was so shattered they couldn’t bear to see an image of themselves looking back at them.

“But soon we began to see those same girls discovering their own beauty and worth.

… story continues