Two Augusta women help in Cambodian shelter

 
By Dave Roberts
KWCH 12 Eyewitness News
6th March, 2011

(AUGUSTA, Kan.) —Two Kansas women travEl across the world to help women and girls in danger. They say in the Southeast Country of Cambodia, girls who are still children are often kidnapped and sold into prostitution.

"When you go and you see these little children, you know, it's everywhere there," says Stacey Gray who went on the trip with Laurie Andrews.

The pair decided to go as part of a trip with the Life Church in Augusta. They volunteered at the SHE Rescue Home, which helps rehabilite the girls through education and arts and crafts.

"We saw some beautiful young girls," said Andrews. "It was amazing to me how resilient they were because we knew some of their stories."

At the shelter, they met a teenager who was kept chained to a wall and forced to have sex with several men a day. There was also a six year old who was saved before her grandmother sold her to a pimp.

"So many of them, their childhood has been stolen from them," Andrews said.

After their week long trip, they hope to return soon because they know there's more work to be done.