Helping Men Break Free from the Cycle of Human Trafficking

Advancing Resilient Khmer (ARK) in Cambodia gives formerly trafficked individuals skills and a reason to hope.

“Many of the guys we work with,” says Patrick Booth, who leads the ARK (Advancing Resilient Khmer) program through the Methodist Mission in Cambodia, “were trafficked when they were 8-12 years old. They were taken to Thailand and they were put on a [fishing] boat. And I asked them, how long does [your labor] last? And they said, ‘what do you mean? It lasts until I die.’”

An estimated 260,000 individuals are similarly locked in modern-day slavery in Cambodia. Sadly, even among those who might eventually be liberated, many will return to forced labor because they lack both the options and the skills to enter a safer workforce.

This is where ARK comes in. Providing job training, food, housing and community for up to 15 participants at a time, ARK equips formerly trafficked individuals with both construction skills and a sense of worth and resilience.

Building the foundation of a future career

ARK operates as a business, first, bidding on projects and hiring skilled workers. Participants in the nonprofit side of the program apprentice themselves to these workers and learn any variety of skills: HVAC repair, renovation, landscaping, roofing, painting, etc. They commit to the program for six months, although the goal is for participants to stay longer so that they can eventually gain the networks, management experience, and business acumen that will help them launch their own careers and, in Booth’s words, “give them the ability and the resilience to keep them from having to go back into vulnerable employment.”

Booth, a trained counselor who spent years counseling individuals with trauma, expected to encounter high rates of trauma among ARK participants when he helped start the program in 2020. But while difficult stories do emerge, Booth has been surprised by the overwhelming joy, relief and gratitude participants have expressed. He tells the story of one participant who sang continuously. He explained to Booth that he sang because his time at ARK was the happiest time of his life; never before had he been surrounded by such care and generosity or encouraged to know his own worth. Such compassion and respect complete ARK’s whole-person ministry. Freed from a cutthroat world of oppression and intimidation, ARK participants enter a workplace where they experience love, the source of which is the God they learn about in communal devotions. As they learn to trust the ARK team and each other, they start sharing that love with one another.

Still in its pilot phase, ARK has many future participants to nurture and goals to meet, such as supporting its own outreach activities. But for now, says Booth, your support allows ARK to continue equipping these young men to “stand on their own two feet and [be] happy with the life that they are now providing for themselves.”

Empower Global Ministries to pilot programs like ARK and reach men and women trapped by human trafficking.