Written by Tyler at Project: AK-47
Henda was the fourth of five sisters born in a small Burmese township of 1,000 people. It was a normal Burmese town filled with drug trafficking, tribal banter, and deep-seated hatreds typical of the region. Henda’s family was prohibited from trafficking drugs due to local interests, which eventually gave them no choice outside of poverty. When Henda graduated from 6th grade, her teachers offered a “promising” army program to study medicine and electronics. With dreams of rescuing her family from their current poverty, she signed up and spent the next 4 years as a slave.
When we interviewed Henda and listened to her experiences with violence and hardship, the pain her memories inflicted was clear. She worked the fields or did military drills all day, and then danced in the evenings. The cost of making one mistake was mandatory beating by all the other children with sticks and belts. Girls had to work in the fields with the younger boys, and were sometimes used as prostitutes. Henda fled the army at risk to her life when she was 16. By the time we connected with her, she had fled the country.
You can give others like Henda hope by joining Project: AK-47 $7 monthly rescue and care campaign. Henda and kids like her are part of our world and we can do something positive to make a difference that counts!