Cynthia

New Moon (Luna Nueva)
Asunción, Paraguay

In Guaraní, the indigenous language of Paraguay, the word kunu’u means tenderness, affection, or caring. But when sixteen-year-old Cynthia left her small town in Paraguay for the big city, she’d known little kunu’u in her life.

Sexually abused by her stepfather and forced by her mother to find employment as a domestic worker, she quit school by the time she was twelve. She joined a gang to find a sense of belonging, of family—of kunu’u. But after she was arrested for fighting with a rival gang and badly beaten by police, Cynthia went to live at a state home for girls in Asunción, Paraguay’s capital.

Although technically in the state’s care, Cynthia was free to roam the streets. She began using drugs and turned to small-time robberies and occasional prostitution to survive. “My life was drugs and fighting,” she recalls, but under her tough demeanor, Cynthia desperately wanted change. Then friends told her about Luna Nueva (New Moon), a local NGO that reaches out to commercially sexually exploited girls.

One of Luna Nueva’s “street educators” encouraged Cynthia to visit the group’s center for girls in downtown Asunción, where she could get a meal and medical attention. Soon after, a judge ordered her to keep going to the center for classes and counseling. Cynthia initially resisted, but then, she says, “I kept coming back, because I saw the things I could do there, how the people stayed with me through everything, and how I wasn’t alone anymore.”

With an annual budget of $125,000, Luna Nueva serves about ninety girls like Cynthia each year. Created in 1995 to improve the lives of sexually exploited children, the organization provides health care, educational opportunities, job training, shelter—and kunu’u—to girls aged twelve to eighteen. Last year’s grant from GFC enabled Luna Nueva to hire several new staff for its street education team, increasing the organization’s capacity to find and assist at-risk girls. At the policy level, Luna Nueva fights to end the commercial sexual exploitation of children in Paraguay through legislation and raising public awareness.

Luna Nueva’s work meets a vital need. Well over half of Asunción’s female sex workers are under twenty years of age, and 28 percent are under sixteen.1 Many are rural migrants who come to the city to escape poverty. With limited options, the girls look for jobs as domestic workers, but they often fall into prostitution after experiencing sexual abuse and physical violence in the workplace. Without job skills or strong family ties, they face dim economic prospects.

Luna Nueva tries to help girls tackle their problems one at a time, believing that transformation must be a gradual journey. Street educators first approach the girls in brothels and bus stations, offering free condoms, health information, and a friendly ear. As trust grows, the educators accompany the girls to medical appointments and invite them to the group’s center for classes and counseling. If and when a girl is ready to leave the sex trade, Luna Nueva offers housing, job training, and employment in the center’s sewing and print shops.

Now twenty, Cynthia has reconnected with her family and lives with her two sisters in Asunción. During the day she works in Luna Nueva’s sewing shop, and at night she is finishing her high-school degree. She hopes to someday go to college to study theater or social work. Until then, she mentors younger girls at Luna Nueva, gets support from the staff when she needs it, and savors both her prospects and her independence. If life is a journey, Cynthia has arrived at a remarkable destination.

Click on the links at the top to read other success stories, or click here to read more about GFC’s Grantmaking Program.