For many years during difficult financial times, aboriginal families in Taiwan would sell their young daughters to the prostitution industry controlled by the underground mafia. Child advocate groups estimated there were 60, child prostitutes at the time. Katherine Wu Wu Fang-fang , a Mennonite pastor in Hualien, Taiwan, became aware of this situation and determined to rescue girls from prostitution and prevent this flesh trade through education in the aboriginal villages on the East coast of Taiwan.
Katherine established the Good Shepherd Center in for this ministry. At the center, rescued girls learned new vocational skills to better their livelihood. One morning in when Katherine arrived at the center for work, three hooded persons appeared and attacked her, beating her brutally. When they started to punch me, I knew that it was because of my work at Good Shepherd.
Before she went unconscious, she was able to ring the doorbell. Staff came to the door and rescued her. As she lay in the hospital, her family, friends and staff of the center came to her and said she could not go back to work at the center.
The attack received widespread coverage in the national media, and the Taiwanese government, along with many organizations and individuals, responded with an outpouring of financial support for the work of the Good Shepherd Center.
The government also took action to curtail the aboriginal sex trade. Eventually, the trade was eliminated, and the center revised its ministry to meet the needs of abused women.
