Our History and Name

The work of Rapha House was initially the vision of native Cambodian Christian leaders who had witnessed girls disappearing from their villages for years and being sold and exploited.

Rapha House co-founder, Joe Garman, had been working with many of these native leaders in the early part of this new century when this horrific reality was brought to his attention firsthand as he actually witnessed the near trafficking of a young woman who had been sold by her parents. The Cambodian leaders that Joe was working with were able to intercede for this young woman and stop the traffickers from taking her. But when Joe heard about the hundreds and thousands of children who were being sold into slavery in Cambodia and surrounding countries, it broke his heart.

These Cambodian leaders had the desire and the will to combat for these children, but needed structure, programming and funding to go about this work.
Joe returned to the US and shared the issue and the vision with his daughter, Stephanie Garman Freed, and together they began to pull in experts and partners with a heart to combat child slavery.

In 2003, Rapha House began their safe house program for children who had been rescued from slavery and sexual exploitation.

Today Rapha House is an international safe house program which has won the favor of the governments in the countries in which it works, as an organization which practices excellence in the standards of caring for children who have been rescued from these traumatic situations.

The Rapha House model is to find native people who are qualified and passionate about combating the issues of child slavery and sexual exploitation in their own countries, and equipping them to combat on behalf of these children.

Rapha is a Hebrew word which means “healing.” And healing is the heartbeat of Rapha House.