GIVING HER ALL
that is only part of the horrors she says she has witnessed in her role as an international aid worker.
Ms Lancaster says she has rescued pre-teenage girls from village sex chambers and seen cities with “whole suburbs of red light districts”.
She has seen what she describes as “pure evil” as desperate families, fighting to stay alive, are left with no other option but to sell their daughters so they can feed their other children.
The parents, who believe their children will be handmaids to the rich, are then faced with the devastating realisation the 13-yearolds will be sex slaves for life.
Ms Lancaster has always harboured a passion to help those in need — particularly those overseas who have no government support to help them. This passion led to her and her father starting a rescue organisation where workers find brothels and rescue girls from a life of sex slavery.
In February 2014 the pair visited India’s Eastern Hills tribes, where sex trafficking was rife, with the intent to set up a safe house. “The youngest girl I met was seven. They were sold as sex toys — that’s the only phrase that can describe how they were used,” Ms Lancaster says.
“These girls came from very poor villages where their families were so desperate, they had no money. They were offered money for food for a month if they sold their daughter.
“They have nothing to eat — they are desperate.”
Promised lives as a lady’s maid for the rich, the girls instead found themselves living a life of horror in dank, putrid brothels. They were raped repeatedly without any contraception.
When found, the girls in the brothels were cradling newborn babies.
“These babies were born in the brothels,” Ms Lancaster says.
“In Calcutta you walk and walk and there are whole areas of red light districts. You follow roads and you see prostitutes and brothels — with girls of every age.
“It is pure evil.”
The Geelong resident had been warned of the dangers on working in remote villages where water was scarce and Western-standard hygiene was non-existent.
“My whole life I’ve had a heart for it (aid work),” Ms Lancaster says.
At some point — maybe when she shared a meal with grieving families, or when she was drinking the only water available to her or when she was visiting leper colonies — Ms Lancaster contracted a parasite that ended her dream of being a humantarian worker.
She was initially diagnosed with a chest infection that left her feeling “as sick as a dog”. Weakened and shedding weight continually, doctors soon found Ms Lancaster had a rare tropical parasite that was filling her lungs.
Soon her vital organs started to shut down.
Ms Lancaster is now a skeletal 41kg, down from her original healthy 65kg. While she has been parasitefree for nearly 2½ years, she has been left with extensive and devastating vagus nerve damage to her stomach and major organs. She has been diagnosed with gastroparesis or, as she calls it, paralysis of the stomach.
Ms Lancaster cannot eat — any food she naturally consumes “comes up again”. At the moment, she is going into intestinal failure.
Ms Lancaster has had more operations than she can remember, due to the tube inside her intestines flipping, or rupturing, or busting. Her life has been irreversibly changed.
Doctors cannot say how long she has left — only that her condition is deteriorating.
But Ms Lancaster’s drive to do good in the world has not waned. She believes she “is blessed” and is studying beauty therapy, including massage, at Geelong’s The Gordon. She was this year’s recipient of the college’s Empower scholarship — which helps fund students who face disadvantage.
Ms Lancaster uses her massage skills to provide respite for the countless terminally ill patients she has met during her long stints in hospital. The difference a small massage makes to their otherwise hospital-filled lives is remarkable, she says.
“I can still enjoy life. There is so much joy out there. I would love to go back to India if I became well enough and take some of the basic elements of massage to communities in dire need,” Ms Lancaster said.
“Imagine being able to massage a leper who no one has wanted to touch. Imagine how that would make them feel.”
Despite the challenges and uncertain future, Ms Lancaster says she wouldn’t change a thing.
Her teacher Amber Beasley said Ms Lancaster was the perfect scholarship recipient.
“She wants to help our community and give back — she is a very inspiring young lady,” Ms Beasley said
Ms Lancaster also makes bracelets from Indian-sourced fair-trade materials.
All the proceeds go to her “Little Sisters” program to help children in India.