The statistics are sobering: An estimated 7 million people are enslaved in the world today — roughly the 2010 population of Illinois, Missouri, Kansas, Colorado and Wyoming. An estimated 1,200,000 thousand children are trafficked — a population the size of Dallas.
The stories are staggering: Suphorn, 14, was promised a waitress job in a city three hours away from her home. Fifteen-year-old Sophony’s family was left in extreme, desperate poverty when her father died. Noch, 13, was beaten and left alone by her family, when a “kind” woman sold the virgin for $1,000. Noch became hooked on the drugs she used to dull the pain of repeated abuse, yet her mother just pressured her for more money to support the village.
In each instance, the girl simply wanted to help her family. “The stories of deceit and manipulation run so deep,” said Stephanie Freed, co-founder of Rapha House.
Rapha House, based in Joplin, Mo., works to rescue and heal children from trafficking and sexual exploitation. The girls tell their stories of exploitation in the feature-length film, “Finding Home,” produced by Rapha House. The members of Bella Vista Christian Church support the work of Rapha House, and a group traveled to Cambodia for a mission this fall.
TRAFFICKING
Jeremy Waltrip of the Bella Vista delegation told the story of one young girl — about 5 or 6 years old — he met in a safe house. The little girl tried sitting on his lap and immediately started making a “kiss face,” and someone had to remove her. He found it hard to grasp that young children can be trained to do that when they see a man. He teared up telling this story, thinking of his own young daughters.
“Age is not a qualifier,” reads Rapha House material. “Both small children and teenagers are often tricked, coerced or sold. Many are transported across borders into the global sex trade and are never again reunited with their families.”
The average age of girls trafficked is 12 years, but Rapha House staff in Cambodia have seen children as young as 4.
Human trafficking is defined by the United Nations as the “illegal trade in human beings for the purposes of commercial sexual exploitation or forced labor: a modern-day form of slavery.”
“Guns are trafficked. Drugs are trafficked. Human beings are trafficked,” reads the Rapha House website. “When a person is controlled, used, moved and in some way profited from, trafficking has occurred.”
The International Labor Organization estimates forced labor is a $31 billion industry. Globally, the ILO estimates nearly 250 million children are indentured to repay an undefined debt that increases faster than the victim can repay. Bondage often comes in forms of forced recruitment for armed conflict, forced labor, prostitution, pornography and the illegal drug trade.
“They think they own these children and can do whatever they want to with them,” Freed said with a spat in the movie.
Life in Cambodia is hard, and the stories don’t always end well, Conrad said. Prostitution can stigmatize a young lady, and some girls return on their own or by force. Some die at the hands of their customers or pimps. Drug addiction and disease also take their toll.
A HISTORY OF DESTITUTION
Although the story of each exploited child is unique, they all have common factors: poverty, ignorance and greed.
Waltrip explained the reasons for Cambodia’s exploding sex trade, growing in the face of the country’s destitution.
In the 1970s, the Khmer Rouge, the ruling Communist Party, led a campaign of genocide. About one-quarter of the Asian country’s population was wiped out — an estimated 2 million people. The genocide, along with war, famine and other factors, diminished the 1970-recorded population of nearly 7 million.
“Pol Pot (the party leader in Cambodia) got rid of intelligent people, so they couldn’t oppose him,” Waltrip said. “The country was left with the young and uneducated.”
Today, children run the streets while their parents work — barely clothed, unfed and with nothing to do, Waltrip illustrated. “Their parents are working around the clock for $2 an hour.”
The country’s infrastructure is failing. “Nobody has the time or money to care about such things,” he said.
“But when you meet the people, you begin to understand,” he said. “They’re really neat people. You get to see how sweet and nice they are, trying to scratch out a living.
“Yet, after dark, (the country) turns very dark and evil.”
A HOUSE FOR HEALING
The international Rapha House organization was formed in 2003 in Joplin, Mo. Freed’s father, a businessman who worked in Southeast Asia, encouraged her to learn more about the trafficking he saw. Today, Rapha House operates five safe houses in Cambodia, one in Haiti and is building another in Thailand.
The organization offers several layers of support for the children rescued from the trafficking industry. Rescue is left to other agencies because of the danger, the website reads, but officials bring these girls to Rapha House to recover.
“We don’t want it to be an orphanage; we want it to be a family,” said David Conrad, director of philanthropy for Rapha House. Conrad formerly served Bella Vista Christian Church as associated pastor and joined the delegation on the mission.
The No. 1 priority of Rapha House staff is the safety of the girls. Thus, safe house locations and the girls’ identities are fiercely guarded. Local group members were told not to ask their stories and not take pictures while at the various safe house locations.
“Think about it,” reads the Rapha House website. “Often these children have been rescued from criminals — criminals who will prostitute children. These children can’t simply return home and hope to be safe and recover from their trauma. Sometimes it’s simply impossible for them to go home because their families were complicit in their trafficking in the first place. They need a safe place to recover and start down the path towards a new life.”
“There were a lot of girls in that safe house,” Conrad said. “It impacts a lot of people.”
At a safe house, the girls receive food, clothing and shelter; medical care; intensive counseling; education; and judicial advocacy. Job training and placement and halfway-house programs support the girls while they try to reintegrate into society.
Families also are involved in the program, “so the girls are not at risk of being re-trafficked,” Conrad said. “They work to get the girls and the family members jobs.”
“If a girl comes at 13, 15 or 8 (years old), it doesn’t change the option to stay as long as needed for that particular girl,” Conrad said. “If a girl turns 18, she is not ‘aged’ out like many other programs. We continue to help her grow towards her goals. We want them to have a purpose other than just serving God.”
Rapha House works to prevent future exploitation, too, with its Freedom Centers for young women. Girls live at the centers while receiving vocational training in skills like sewing, jewelry making, cosmetology, silk weaving, agriculture and more.
The Bella Vista group spent time at the Freedom Salon, where the girls learn “to do hair and nails,” said Heather Waltrip, Jeremy’s wife and the leader of the team. “Hair is big in Cambodia. You might live in a mud hut, but you have good hair,” she said with a laugh.
“They did our hair and nails — which is weird when you go on a mission trip,” she continued. “They wouldn’t let us pay them. They said it was just for practice. You couldn’t say no. They were just too sweet.” Even the men of the group returned with painted toenails.
For the youngest girls, another prevention program is in place. Kids Clubs are twice-weekly pre-school centers where 200 some kids receive food, clothing, education and Christian education. Also, their families receive food for a month and medical care, explained Sally Rhodes, part of the Bella Vista team. This is accomplished through a sponsorship of each child.
“Thirty dollars here doesn’t get you much, but $30 there is everything,” she noted.
“As a part of my job at Rapha House, one of my responsibilities on the trip was to see that they’re using the money wisely,” Conrad said. “I can tell you it’s a good investment.”
Many members of the local team and the church send $30 a month to Rapha House in support of these girls. Each team member got to spend the day with the child sponsored. “That was very emotional, but so joyful,” Heather Waltrip said. “It was so amazing to get to see them face-to-face and see exactly what your monthly support was going to. I consider the little girl we sponsor as my little Cambodia daughter.”
Everyone working or serving in the Rapha House organization is Christian, but they offer aid without strings.
“One of the things I loved at the safe house was that everything they did had to do with God,” Conrad said. “They need God for healing.
“But no girl is forced to follow God,” he continued. “No girl is made to renounce their faith or religion to be in a program. What Rapha means in Hebrew is literally ‘healing.’ But the staff lives Christian day in and day out, so the girls want to be. As our staff helps the girls, they show them what real Christian love looks like, helping them find stability, growing to trust again, and the girls find healing in the safe house. Stateside, our staff is also praying over the in-country staff and the girls.”
HOPE REMAINS
Local team members were unprepared for what they saw at the safe houses.
“There was no misery or brokenness,” Jeremy Waltrip said. “You think, ‘Were they really trafficked?’ I didn’t seem like it. Rapha House did a good job.”
Conrad agreed. “I thought we’d see a brokenness, especially in the brand-new girls. I thought no one would look you in the eye. But so many of those girls did look us in the eye with real joy.”
He said he was especially touched when one girl said to him: “Jesus loves you.” She had translated it from her native language to English.
“They loved soda,” Conrad continued. “They liked to walk, pretending they were celebrities. And we prayed and sang worship songs with them. It’s a sign of God at work, an example that God has the power for good.”
The local group collected “mission funds” at home to fill the needs members saw. These included baby supplies and toys, Cambodian Bibles and even a craft party for the Kids Club.
“Girls who have come to Rapha House have been cheated out of their childhoods,” Freed said on the Rapha House website. “We cannot restore the youthfilled life, joy and dreams, but we can help with a promising and productive future where they can shape their new hopes and dreams.
“They’re worth the fight.”
Laurinda Joenks can be reached by email at [email protected] or on Twitter @NWALaurinda
AT A GLANCE
Rapha House
To sponsor a child, volunteer, hold an event, donate Address: P.O. Box 1569, Joplin, Mo. 64802 Telephone: (417) 621-0373 Website: raphahouse.org
Bella Vista Christian Church
Address: 103 Riordan Road, Bella Vista, 72715 Telephone: 855-1616 Website: bellavistachristian.com