Ranch Hand Rescue has announced plans to open a safe house exclusively for male sex trafficking victims.
The Denton nonprofit may be the only nonprofit in the world pairing abused and neglected animals with human mental health therapy. Now, it will soon offer one of the only safe houses in the U.S. aiding male victims of sex trafficking.
“If we don’t provide shelter for victims of sex trafficking, their abusers are extremely likely to find them and bring them back into the trade,” Ranch Hand Rescue founder Bob Williams said in a statement. “No person should be subjected to such a monstrous situation, but trafficked boys in particular are being overlooked; we’re going to change that now.”
“This will be the first safe house for boys and men of any age in Texas, and one of the first we can find in the country.”
Bob Williams
This summer, Dallas-based The Family Place opened the state’s first domestic violence shelters for males. According to the CDC, 1 in 7 men ages 18 an older have been the victim of domestic violence in the U.S., but there are fewer resources available to men than women.
For sex trafficking, the U.S. Department of State said males makeup almost half of human trafficking victims in the world, but as with domestic violence cases, there are fewer shelters and assistance programs catering to males.
“This will be the first safe house for boys and men of any age in Texas, and one of the first we can find in the country,” Williams said. “Since we have a deficit of male care nationwide, we want to open our doors to those in need across the country. We’re ready to join with anyone who wants to fight this fight with us.”
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Ranch Hands Rescue is expanding its animal-assisted counseling services to help young men who are victims of sex trafficking.
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