SPIRO, Okla — A new local program helping children overcome the trauma of sex trafficking is now up and running.
"We take children in from those horrible situations and bring them into a loving home-like environment," Sarah Williams with Kaleb House said.
Williams said their approach to helping children recover all starts with comforting the child.
"They're going to be with house parents," she said. "They're not going to just be in a room by themselves, alone or anything like that. They will be in a family-like environment that is healthy for them."
The next step of the process is allowing the child to release their anger.
"We also provide them with the opportunity to have like jiu-jitsu instructions, so to help with that anger and aggression, and you know how to properly channel the anger for what you've been through," Williams said.
Finally, the children undergo spiritual therapy.
"We show them the love of God," Williams said. "We pour into them, read the Bible with them, and everything else to show them that God loves them."
Kaleb House has offices in Spiro, Okla. Organizers keep the specific location confidential for the safety of the children.
"Bad people want to continue doing bad things most of the time," Williams said. "Abusers who are abusing or trafficking children, they're getting money for this. When these people get the children taken away, they typically want those children back. And again, we do work with the judicial system to get them behind bars, but we don't share the location, because we want those children safe."
Williams said another goal of Kaleb House is to break generational cycles.
"There has to be that recovery and restoration as well too because people who are trafficked tend to then abuse up to 82 more victims," she said.
On top of helping local victims, Williams hopes this program becomes nationwide eventually.
"We're going to continue building Kaleb House campuses all over the country, until we have enough houses to basically house everybody that we possibly can," she said.
Kaleb House runs strictly on donations and fundraisers. If you would like to help them, visit their website here.
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