Orlando prof trains those serving India's exploited young women

In the red light districts of India, the average age of girls in brothels is 14 – just one example of the child sexual abuse so widespread there. Dr. David Carson said, “It’s just a huge problem,” one of the weighty problems that draw him again and again to serve this country.

Carson is a licensed marriage and family therapist and professor of psychology at PBA’s Orlando Campus. In short-term mission trips to India, he’s been helping prepare the rehabilitation home workers who minister to these exploited young women.

“ ese girls are beaten, tortured; they have just faced horri c, multiple attacks,” he said. O en girls from poor areas have been tricked or kidnapped to wind up in brothels. “Some very poor parents will actually sell their children to these thugs,” he said.

Carson works with Oasis India, a Christian group that collaborates with the International Justice Mission. Once a girl escapes from the brothel system, such groups provide medical and legal help, counseling and vocational training.

For several weeks a year Carson trains sta associated with such indigenous Christian organizations. His work ranges from training doctoral students to helping ministries develop youth projects in India’s slums.

For more than 20 years Carson has collaborated with Indian scholars on research and writing. He has published extensively on various topics relating to child sexual abuse, counseling, family therapy and family life education. His passion for South Asia and its people took root in 1975, when he rst went to India on a threemonth mission as a young college graduate. In 1997-1998 he was a Fulbright senior scholar in India, and he won a Fulbright senior specialist award. ough Carson nds vibrant Christian organizations serving the poor and exploited in India, he o en goes into areas where Christians su er persecution. In parts of the Himalayas, he sees "just a ferocious kind of Hinduism" that won't allow church planting. “Or if you try to build something, the people in the community will just keep tearing it down and threatening you,” said Carson. “So the alternative is for people to create house churches.” With house churches “sprouting up all over” in India, Carson sees God’s spirit “mightily at work.” And he serves among people "who tend to pay a much bigger price for their faith than we do here.”

Once again this year he plans to return to the country, to continue his service, research and relationship building. “To me,” he said, “it’s really all about the relationships that I make every year."