Women’s football match hailed a “huge success”

Football fans at the University of Kent battled it out on Thursday for the much-coveted chance to win a combination meal at Nando’s. The charity event, hosted by UKC Against Human Trafficking, offered football players a peri-peri-coated reward for raising money and awareness for Love 146, an anti-human trafficking charity which aims to build Britain’s first safe house for trafficked children.

Gail Commandeur, president of the society, told volunteers about the lack of support for trafficked children and reminded spectators why fundraising events like these are so important. In a moving half-time speech, she said: “The problem is, these children may not speak English and will trust their traffickers more than they trust the care system. Because of this, 60% of trafficked children who have been taken into care go missing.”

The match was hailed a success by the footballers, spectators, and committee members of the student-led volunteer group. Michelle Siyanbola, organiser of the event, was amazed by the response she received. She said: “I didn’t envision this kind of result! So many girls were willing to join the cause by playing and, despite the harsh weather, so many people actually turned up to watch, support and give to the charity.”
“I just want to thank everyone that made this event a huge success in one way or another.”

Many travelled from elsewhere to join in, including Cara Lockwood, 21, who took the free Medway shuttle bus to take part. Talking about the event, she said: “I really enjoyed the game and it is all for a great cause.”

After the match, Woody’s Bar kindly offered beer and burger deals to all involved in the event and spectators definitely made the most of this generosity!

The money raised through the match is currently being counted by Raise and Give, Kent Union’s charity branch, before being sent to Love146.

UKC Against Human Trafficking would like to give a big thank you to Nando’s for providing four free meals for the winning team and to Woody’s bar for the beer and burger discounts.

 

Written by: Maya Esslemont

UKC Against Human Trafficking to hold awareness-raising football match

Excerpt from, ‘UKC Against Human Trafficking to hold awareness-raising football match‘ by George Hopkin, InQuire,  our University of Kent student newspaper!  Click on link above to see the FULL article.

“On Thursday 21st March, UKC Against Human Trafficking, a student-led volunteer group (or SLVG), will be hosting a Female Football Match to raise awareness of the modern issues surrounding human trafficking.

The event, involving a football game exclusively for females, aims to raise money for the charity Love146, which provides care and support for children who have been victims of human trafficking. The organisation’s campaign that the SLVG is supporting, Run for Love 1000, aims to raise £150,000 to go towards

“the first national programme dedicated to the care and recovery of children who have been trafficked into the UK”.

…Click here for the public facebook event by UKC Against Human Trafficking and to find out more information.”

Free Film Screening : TAKEN and the dark underworld of sex-trafficking

Liam Neeson is a consumed man, with a very special set of skills, chasing human traffickers down in Paris to rescue his daughter who was kidnapped and sold into the sex-industry on vacation with her friend.

UKC Against Human Trafficking (UKCAHT) are hosting this FREE film night to relive the action and bring it to a big screen to raise awareness about real-life people trafficking happening through our cities.  If you saw us at Refreshers Fayre it’s a great event to hear more on what we’re about. Invite friends- sit back, eat some fair trade chocolate and watch some ass being kicked. Short talk at the end about who we are and future events.

Taken, (2008), although an action blockbuster, if you look closely it shows accurately and shockingly the different levels of the criminal underworld of sex trafficking in all its horrendous forms. From street prostitution to apartment brothels– to construction sites with conveyor belts of men finding ‘recreation time’ with drugged up trafficked girls, to the elite ‘slave’ auctions of the wealthy where virginity comes at an expensive  price, all in the midst of the corruption of the Paris police who allow the trade to flourish.

Liam Neeson chases after his daughter’s traffickers relentlessly for revenge and her rescue. The much quoted and now famous line,

“I don’t know who you are. I don’t know what you want… But if you don’t let my daughter go…I will find you… I will kill you.”

is absolutely chilling when you finally hear it. But it’s not as chilling as the sex-traffickers in the film admitting to Liam Neeson in seeing his distress that they were also fathers of daughters, but the abuse of other people’s children was casually justified by,

“Hey, I’m sorry, but it’s just business, you know?”

Hey, a human being is a commodity that can be bought, sold, raped, and thrown away like a used drug, and it doesn’t matter because of profit: they don’t understand the torture of the human soul, because their eyes and hearts are dead like dollar bill$.

However, another more heart-wrenching aspect that this film shows a sharp contrast to is the reality that some families knowingly sell their daughters into the sex trade to be raped or their sons to the brick factory in India or cocoa plantation in the Ivory coast, to be denied a childhood but also to hopefully to send home some money to alleviate grave financial difficulty.

 Every trafficking victim is someone’s daughter, son, brother, or sister. Every trafficking victim is a person that’s been dehumanised by the criminal. In reality, only the lucky few have someone looking for them; pursuing their safety and release, and only the luckiest are found.

International Justice Mission are a charity that use investigators, lawyers and social workers intervene in individual cases of abuse in partnership with state and local authorities. Because of their local partnerships, they frequently find and rescue victims of sexual exploitation and forced labour. In April 2011 they freed more than 500 enslaved men, women and children from a brick factory in their

“largest anti-slavery operation ever”.

Click here for the article & check out their website for more details of their amazing work.

Written by: Gail Commandeur

UKC Against Human Trafficking at Refresher’s Fayre

UKC Against Human Trafficking today recruited over 70 new mailing list members at the University of Kent’s Refresher’s Fayre! Armed with a tub of Haribo, Dipa, Gail, Maya, Alex, Alicja, and Kezia spent the day talking to Kent Uni students about the cause and plugging our upcoming movie night! (The free film night invites people to watch the awesome film Taken)

Thanks to everyone who volunteered, it was a big success.

UKC Against Human Trafficking doughnut sale raises £200

We did it! The Krispy Kreme doughnut sale on the University of Kent campus raised over £200 – surpassing the target we set for ourselves. The money will go a long way in aiding the ‘Taxis against Trafficking’ campaign, set for next year, which aims to let taxi drivers know the signs of human trafficking and encourage them to report suspicious behaviour to the police.
Thank you to everybody who braved the cold to sell doughnuts (and of course, the brave soldiers who ate them)

Why we exist: Introducing UKC Against Human Trafficking

Does Human Trafficking really happen throughout Kent?

The last 7 months have been a roller coaster of having an idea, finding like minded-people, and making it happen. The idea was to start trying to make the area around the University of Kent (UKC) in Canterbury an area that is hostile to people trafficking. An area hostile to the movement, rape, exploitation and forced labour of men, women and children right here in the UK.

People trafficking, human trafficking, and a wealthy, picturesque, fairly rural English county in South England aren’t two things that you would expect to go together. After all  the myth is that human trafficking, people being literally SOLD for £ into prostitution, forced crime or labour only happens in India, Cambodia, South Africa, the third forgotten world, far away from the life of a student, family, business owner or whatever your daily life is. Surely it’s far away from our communities…

I thought so too until i saw this article. (click to see)

these articles.

and this article .

Although the possibility was horrific, the evidence was right there. UKC Against Human Trafficking is a student led volunteer group (SLVG), open to students and the public at the University of Kent to campaign, raise awareness and fundraise to stop cases like these, the trafficking of people, from happening in our towns, cities and counties as part of a global movement to end modern-day slavery.

On this website you can find our contact information, our regular meetings, our latest events, awareness and fundraising campaigns, as well as thought-provoking articles and research covering a vast range of topics on slavery and anti-trafficking that as students we write and research ourselves.