Jennifer Ekedal, with the Cordova-based Orphanos Foundation, is traveling to Cambodia to work with girls freed from the sex trafficking industry in that country.
By: The Commercial Appeal
Collierville woman goes to work with girls freed from Cambodia sex trade
For 13 years, the Cordova-based Orphanos Foundation has been working to help at-risk children around the world.
Orphanos president Wayne Sneed sums up the mission in just a few words: "a global need, a local response."
Jennifer Ekedal, 24, of Collierville, is the latest to respond. She was scheduled to leave Sunday for a three-month mission in Cambodia to work with girls rescued from the country's sex trafficking industry.
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Americans received a horrifying glimpse into Cambodia's booming child trafficking business several years ago when Dateline NBC conducted an investigation that found girls as young as 5 years old being sold for sex.
Then-Secretary of State Colin Powell told Dateline: "It's a sin against humanity. ... Can you imagine what will happen to these girls when they're 15 or 20? What will become of them? They will have no education ... they will have been used, tossed away and ruined ..."
Sneed and Ekedal say girls often are taken from families and told they have to pay off a family debt.
"And a lot of times they're tricked, told they can get a great job as a maid to help provide for their family," Ekedal said, "and then sold into a brothel."
Said Sneed: "In some cultures, they believe having sex with a virgin can cure you from a disease, especially a sexually transmitted disease like AIDS. So there's a higher price to be paid for a younger girl and a virgin."
UNICEF estimates there are 1.2 million child victims in the global sexual trafficking market.
Ekedal previously went on a three-week missions trip to the Philippines, where she met many young orphaned girls who had been sexually abused. What stuck with Ekedal was how much a kind word or deed seemed to mean to them.
"They were starved for love," she said.
Ekedal, who is considering full-time missions work, recently graduated from the University of Memphis with a degree in interior design. That might not sound like the right background for this kind of trip, but it is exactly the right background because her chief job will be to help set up a store in Phnom Penh that sells clothing and other items.
"When you rescue a girl out of a brothel, she's got a skill," Sneed said. "So what we're doing with Jennifer is saying, 'Let us teach you a different skill,' so they don't end up back on the street selling themselves."
-- Don Wade: 529-2358
About the Orphanos Foundation
A nonprofit group based in Cordova, Orphanos serves at-risk children caught in a variety of circumstances, including extreme poverty, loss of family, forced child labor, sexual abuse and exploitation.
Orphanos partners with orphanages in Brazil, Colombia, India, Korea and Mexico.
Orphanos is a member of the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability and is approved by the United Way and Combined Federal Campaign.
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