She spoke in a rushed, trembling voice, her breath catching between words. “Listen,” she pleaded, her eyes wide with horror. “Something terrible is happening. I’ve seen it—three times now. Every Friday and Saturday night, around 11:00 p.m., when the crowd is high on drugs and alcohol, the police bring children into the club.”
The weight of her words hung in the air, suffocating.
Her voice cracked as she pressed on. “The worst was this little girl… She couldn’t have been more than seven. She walked in wearing stiletto heels, a mini skirt, and a spaghetti-strap top slipping off her tiny shoulder.” The informant’s hands trembled as she recounted the moment. “She didn’t know how to stand or sit. She looked nervous. Lost. Someone yelled at her for not moving properly. They wanted her to dance, but she could barely walk in those ridiculous heels. She stumbled over and over.”
Then, the moment that sent ice through her veins.
“She danced to one song. That’s all. Then, when I tried to get to her, a group of women blocked my path. They’re always there—watching the kids, controlling them. They don’t speak much, but their eyes say, ‘I’ll kill you if I have to.’”
She swallowed hard before continuing. “Then they took her—marched her upstairs. A man was waiting for her.”
Silence.
She stared past the room, lost in the memory. “I’ll never forget her. That strap slipping off her shoulder, those oversized clothes, her tiny feet in those shoes meant for someone twice her size. They had drugged her, but she knew enough to be afraid. She was terrified. Alone.”
Later, the organization’s executive chairperson reflected on the story. “Hearing that shook me to my core. It ignited something in me—a resolve to act. The darkness can feel so overwhelming, so unbearable, that you want to close your eyes and pretend you didn’t hear. But if the community can find courage, there’s hope. There’s healing. There’s even joy waiting on the other side.”
Moved by the story, artist Jami Dix Rahn picked up her brush. She couldn’t erase what had happened, but she could capture its weight, its rawness, its truth. She painted fragmented planes, each shaded separately, creating depth without a solid form. The result was haunting—chaos suspended in color, yet somehow, in its abstraction, it held a sliver of hope.
She painted to remember. To honor. To ensure the little girl’s story would never fade.
Because silence is a choice. And this time, the world would not look away.