United Methodist Women is organizing a human trafficking program for Saturday, October 14, 9 a.m.-1 p.m. in the Fellowship Hall of the First United Methodist Church in Apopka.
Admission is free and open to the public, but space is limited.
Speakers on the topic will be from the Human Trafficking Unit, Office of the State Attorney, Metropolitan Bureau of Investigation, Ninth Judicial Circuit of Florida, and the Apopka Police Department (APD).
“(Human trafficking) is exploiting the most vulnerable people in our society,” said Sharon Fisher, the circle chair for United Methodist Women. “I don’t know your age, but we’re probably just as vulnerable as anybody else. If you can have a 56-year-old woman taken when coming out of a dentist’s office, you and I could be taken while coming out of our car.”
United Methodist Women spent two years organizing the program, with the members attempting to convince each other that the issue must be brought to light in the community.
“They said, ‘It’s depressing.’ I said, ‘Yes, it is depressing, but it is something that’s out there in front of us, and we need to address it,’” Fisher said.
According to the Florida Department of Children and Families, federal law and state law define human trafficking as “the transporting, soliciting, recruiting, harboring, providing, or obtaining of another person for transport; for the purposes of forced labor, domestic servitude or sexual exploitation using force, fraud, and/or coercion.”
The crime impacts various individuals, both domestic and foreign. Currently, there are about 20.9 million people enslaved through human trafficking throughout the world, according to the Florida Coalition Against Human Trafficking.
To reserve a seat at the human trafficking program, call 407-782-0488 or 407-889-2628, email onebazaarwoman@embarqmail.com, or the church office at 407-886-3421. The church’s address is 201 S. Park Ave., Apopka.
An expanded version of this story appears in the Friday, October 6, issue of The Apopka Chief.
