Despite a gusty morning with the wind chill dropping into the 30s, dedicated booths and educational stations set up around Lake Eola on Saturday for the Greater Orlando 8th Annual Human Trafficking Awareness Day.
The event was hosted by the Greater Orlando Human Trafficking Task Force and Florida Abolitionist to help create awareness to the growing problem of human trafficking in Central Florida as well as provide free education to help the public become more vigilant to possible issues around them.
Milegros Rivera, a volunteer for GOHTTF, spent the day supervising the children zone, where there were various educational stations for children to participate in.
“The area here is set up to help educate children about the dangers of human trafficking and to help them become aware of potential traffickers in the community” Rivera said.
The children area included painting, music, games, and demos from Victory Martial Arts Academy. Other booths that attended included Ladies in Waiting mentoring program, Devereux child welfare services, and Redemption Story Bracelets.
Also in attendance was the Truckers against Trafficking organization, a media-based non-profit based out of Denver, CO. T.A.T travel across the country to various education events accompanied by their demo truck which contains exhibits of stories from past trafficking victims.
Helen Van Dam, a volunteer for T.A.T, stationed herself at the entrance to the truck exhibit, handing out informational packets to passing people and explaining details of the program.
“We’re talking about forced prostitution in America and how truckers are combating it,” said Van Dam. “Our goal is to educate, equip, empower, and mobilize members of the trucking and travel plaza industry to combat sex trafficking in the United States as a part of their regular jobs.”
A part of the T.A.T program is to provide training DVDs and webinars to truck drivers in order to help them identify potential victims and contact the right authorities. The demo truck trailer, which has been used since August of 2014, helps give a visual representation of the reality of trafficking in our local community.
Florida Abolitionist and GOHTTF are organizations based out of Orlando that are committed to raising awareness to the issues surrounding human trafficking as well as educating the public to prevent further exploitation of innocent people in the Central Florida community. Anyone who is interested in becoming involved can reach out to the organizations at the links below.
https://floridaabolitionist.org/
