On Wednesday 13th February Croydon High School held an inaugural NCYW seminar marking its first event as the new London and South East hub for the National Council of Young Women. Those attending the event included girls from a number of local schools and guests from NCW, CCAT, the Border Agency and the Sophie Hayes Foundation.

The topic chosen for discussion was ‘ human trafficking’, which is the movement of people through coercion or deception into a situation of exploitation. Essentially, this means people are being bought and sold in what can be coined as ‘modern day slavery’. This then provokes the question, ‘but slavery was abolished years ago, how can it still be going on?’ It is true slavery was abolished many years ago and it is true that it is still going on.

When someone is trafficked they can be exploited through four broad categories: Sexual Exploitation, Forced Labour, Domestic Servitude and Organ Harvesting. Human trafficking is the second largest source of illegal income worldwide exceeded only by drugs trafficking and every 20 seconds a person becomes a victim.

During the seminar Sophie Hayes, who has been trafficked herself, delivered her hard hitting and emotional story. This opened the girls’ eyes to the fact that when you generally hear about issues such as trafficking or any other type of global topic we always assume it cannot happen to us. And Sophie had felt the same. Someone who had grown up in England and attended a prestigious school, she felt such things couldn’t touch her. What also didn’t help was that when she was at school they hadn’t talked about issues that could affect young people such as trafficking, which is why she goes around schools today spreading awareness.

A simple and easy way that we can help is through buying Fairtrade products and if possible have a look at Night Light’s website (www.nightlightinternational.com) where you can buy jewellery which helps to give women who are trafficked around the world another option instead of having to revert to the sex industry for a source of income.

More information can be found about Sophie and her story on the Sophie Hayes Foundation website (www.sophiehayesfoundation.org) and in full in her book ‘Trafficked – My Story’.

For a more local approach consider contacting and signing up to CCAT, Croydon Community against Trafficking, and/or YCAHT, Your Community against Human Trafficking, where you can participate or even volunteer to help make a difference. 

One last message to you all is a quote by William Wilberforce, “You may choose to look the other way but you can never say again that you did not know”.