Walking the distance to raise awareness
Forty people will walk 695km from Durban to Johannesburg to raise awareness about the trafficking of women and children for sexual exploitation.
Open Door Crisis Centre, in partnership with the South African Police Service, launched the Human Trafficking Awareness campaign on Saturday, Highway Mail reported.
Human trafficking is the practice of buying and selling people for labour, organs or sexual exploitation, and is believed to be the fastest growing crime in the world, according to Advocate Val Daffel.
Director of Open Door, Thora Mansfield, said statistics were shocking, as 27 million people have been victims of human trafficking. “About 1.2 million children are trafficked annually, half of which are children from Africa. The purpose of the walk is not only to raise much-needed funds but also to create awareness of human trafficking,” said Mansfield.
“Should we prevent one child from being trafficked we believe our walk would have been a success – one child is one too many.”
Major General Kabelo Mekute said children had to be protected. “As the police, we really appreciate projects like these,” said Mekute.
Brigadier Gwala, the chairman of Men for Change, applauded this initiative. “This is the first time that I have heard of an NGO take such drastic measures. We know that, in most cases, the perpetrators are usually men and we are against that – real men should protect children and women,” said Gwala.
– Caxton News Service
Read original story on highwaymail.co.za
