Cambodia (MNN) — Can you help protect kids from human trafficking in Cambodia?
A quarter of Cambodia’s physical or sexual assault victims are under the age of 10. (Image courtesy MTI)
Half of Cambodia’s population is under the age of 18, making the Southeast Asian nation a literal “kingdom of children”. Operation Mobilization says these kids face an unthinkable reality.
Information OM received from human rights organizations and health care professionals in Cambodia indicate that, throughout the country, children are being sexually and physically assaulted daily.
Children 10 and younger comprise 25-percent of sexual assault victims. According to one NGO’s investigation, the average victim age is 12 years old.
Cambodia has been downgraded in the annual U.S. State Department’s Global Trafficking In Persons (TIP) Report, moving from Tier 2, where it’s been for the last three years, to the Tier 2 Watch List.
Tier rankings typically highlight the efforts, or lack thereof, a nation’s government puts toward cutting human trafficking. The 2013 TIP report says Cambodia’s downgrade resulted from fewer prosecutions of trafficking offenders than in 2012, and a lack of efforts to combat the corruption fueling human trafficking.
Project Freedom workers wash the hands and feet of abused Cambodian children. (Image courtesy MTI)
OM’s projects are providing a road to recovery. Vocational training and counseling operated by OM’s Mercy Teams International (MTI) give abused kids new life in Christ.
Project Freedom offers counseling and psychotherapeutic resources to child victims of sexual and physical abuse. It also works to help prevent abuse through training and education in the community.
In the labyrinth of sexual or physical abuse and extreme poverty, hope and healing can be elusive.
“When people are lonely or hopeless, they need someone to be there to walk with them,” says Mom, a Project Freedom supervisor.
That’s why she and her Project Freedom co-workers come alongside young people walking the road to recovery. They equip these shattered youth with the knowledge of God’s unfailing love, and the abiding hope that comes with it.
Pray strength and perseverance for Project Freedom workers and participants.
Children learn computer skills in MTI’s Project Wings. (Image courtesy MTI)
Project Wings is a vocational training center designed to give young people from very poor backgrounds the opportunity to learn a technical skill e.g. IT, mechanics, welding and metal work, electrical and plumbing skills, carpentry and building, and hairdressing and sewing.
MTI hopes Project Wings will help protect youth from things like sexual exploitation and trafficking. Pray that technical training will lift them out of the darkness of the streets.
Click on the linked project titles above to learn about specific needs in each area. Click here to support MTI financially.
Pray these programs keep growing. Pray for those in Cambodia who are reaching out to at-risk street kids. Pray trafficking victims will take hold of Christ’s love and not return to the sex trade.
Vocational training and counseling operated by OM’s Mercy Teams International (MTI) give abused kids new life in Christ. (Image courtesy MTI)
