Women on Mission – December Update

When Women on Mission met Dec. 9, speaker Katherine Long Dix, longtime missionary in Sophia, Bulgaria, gave a moving presentation about the problem of human trafficking and prostitution there and around the world. Bulgaria is a hub for transporting and importing girls, women, and boys for sexual exploitation (trafficking). WOM learned that prostitution differs in that the girl or woman puts herself up for sale. Each year, more than 10,000 persons are trafficked from Bulgaria throughout the world.

Katherine is a psychotherapist from Birmingham, Ala. She and her husband Taylor have served as Mission to the World missionaries in Bulgaria since 2012. Their vision is to see the Bulgarian Church equipped to welcome victims of exploitation and trafficking.

Katherine volunteers with Spring of Hope foundation in Bulgaria, an anti-trafficking organization that works in prevention, intervention, and aftercare. Spring of Hope reaches out to women and girls by befriending them and sharing the love of Jesus with them. Their goal is to bring them out of trafficking, teach them job skills, provide therapy where needed, and help them adjust to a life away from trafficking. They hope to purchase/rent a three-story building that can be used as a community center for those leaving trafficking.

During her evenings, Katherine counsels clients in St. Louis, Mo., online, specializing in working with those struggling with addiction and trauma.

Bulgaria has seen a huge influx of women since the start of the war in Ukraine, Katherine said. While inflation soared during COVID and the war, Bulgaria is still the cheapest place to live in Europe, she noted. Bulgaria’s largest industries are tourism, beauty products, and canola oil, and the country is home to the second oldest city in Europe. The church building where she and Taylor worship is 130 years old, and its congregation has existed for 150 years.

Katherine and Taylor are part of a church-planting team of seven families and five singles working in two cities. Presently they are assessing where God is leading them to plant a new church and who from the existing church will go with them. Taylor is also studying to become a pastor.

Trafficking is defined as the recruiting, transportation, transferring, harboring, or receipt of persons by improper means for an improper purpose including forced labor or sexual exploitation. Bulgaria is considered a destination, transit, and recruitment country. While Bulgaria is very protective of its minors, prostitution by people 18 years and older is treated as a choice, to the point of some advocating for its decriminalization.

When communism fell in Bulgaria, Katherine said, the country did not make strides in reforming its judiciary, combatting corruption, or fighting organized crime, making it rife for the Russian mafia and other mobs who specialize in prostitution and human trafficking. Their organizational structure involves hundreds of people, from prostitutes to madams, mules, flesh hunters (traffickers), money carriers, investors, and a boss at the top.

Spring of Hope works with the government, other organizations, and churches to help women leave prostitution through prevention with training, providing food and clothing; intervention, including outreach on the streets, online, and indoors, including in person at strip clubs; and after-care through six government shelters, business skills training, and helping to repatriate trafficked women back into Bulgaria.

Katherine shared how rewarding it is when a life is changed, coming out of darkness into the light of God’s love. She encouraged WOM to pray not only for the victims but also for those who engage in trafficking, noting they, too, are God’s children and deserving of his love, grace, and mercy.