Cambodia Mission to Fight Trafficking
ARKANSAS DEMOCRAT-GAZETTE
Pam Carter is going back to Cambodia, and this time she’s taking fellow members of Bella Vista Christian Church along. She wants them to see how their donations are helping rescue young girls from a life of slavery and exploitation.
This will be Carter’s third trip to the Asian nation through Rapha House, a nonprofit ministry based in Joplin, MO., that provides housing, counseling and job training for girls who fall victim to human trafficking. The group has safe houses and halfway houses for girls in Cambodia and Thailand, who range in age from 4 to 18.
“This is a problem that comes out of poverty,” Carter said. “These girls are sold, sometimes by their own families. Many times they don’t understand what they are doing. They think they are giving their children an opportunity.”
Carter said human traffickers will promise poor families that their child will be given a job and be clothed and fed, and they will offer to help the family with a small sum of money. For some the offer is too tempting to ignore, she said.
“Parents who have many other children with no way to feed them will let a girl go and find our later she’s been taken to a brothel,” Carter said.
Stephanie Freed, executive director of the Joplin ministry, said Rapha House was started by her father, Joe Garman. While on a mission trip to Southeast Asia several years ago, he saw human traffick-ers at work trying to lure girls away from their families.
“The event changed his life,” Freed said. But Freed couldn’t believe that in this day and age slavery was a real problem-until she started investigating on her own.
“I was pretty reluctant at first to even research this,” said Freed, whose own daughters at the time were very young. “I was living the life of a Midwestern young mother and having a really good life. We were doing ballet and karate and going to birthday parties, and I really didn’t want to become so aware of such tragic things happening to children around the world.”
Once she started researching she couldn’t ignore the problem. “The information was out there,” she said. UNICEF was already saying that more than 1 million children are trafficked every year….I knew this was a calling on my life that I had to pursue.”
Freed decided to learn more and took a trip to Cambodia. There she met many citizens concerned abut slavery in their country. They really had a desire to combat what was going on in their country, but didn’t have the financial capacity,” Freed said. “They needed support and that’s how Rapha House was born.”
Carter’s first trip to Cambodia in 2007 was also an eye opener. “I was surprised on many levels,” she said. “The country is very poor …people living in cardboard boxes, selling old scraps of this and that to just try to make it.”
She was also overwhelmed when she visited one of the Rapha House homes for girls. They greeted her and the other visitors with leis of fresh flowers and lots of hugs and smiles, she said. “The girls were so happy,” she said. “I was emotionally overwhelmed by that. It was amazing.”
In October, Carter will return to Cambodia, along with members of the Bella Vista congregation and some from Prairie Grove Christian Church in Washington County. Freed will also travel with them. They’ll be in the country for two weeks, visiting the children and delivering supplies. Carter said they’ll also provide encouragement to girls still recovering from abusive situations.
While at Rapha House facilities, Freed said, the girls are helped by several programs. Safe homes offer the girls social services, education, instruction in English and counseling. Halfway homes, also called Freedom Centers, provide vocational training. The girls are supervised by live-in staff but are also prepared for eventual independent independent living. The reintegration program offers job placement and start-up loans or grants. Girls can also participate in counseling with their families.
Freed said the ministry also focuses on prevention by educating at-risk children and families and offering agricultural training to families so they have the skills to provide for their children.
The U.S.-based ministry raises money with the help of individual donations and fundraisers by churches, including Bella Vista Christian Church. Freed said the toughest work is done overseas in the safe houses and halfway houses and in communities where the staff tries to stop human trafficking.
“We [in the United States] are the ones who have the opportunity to tell their story and to make people aware of what’s going on,” Freed said. “This is an issue happening globally, happening to children all over the world, even in the United States.”
Carter urges others to step outside of their comfort zones and do their own research. She knows from her own trips to Cambodia that her mission team will be affected by what they see and learn. “It will be life-changing for all of us, “ she said. “It was for me.”
Information is available online at bellavistachristian.com or by calling (479)855-1616. Information on Rapha House is at freedomforgirls.org.
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