On a recent visit to France, two of our volunteers met up with two phenomenal women working with victims of sexual exploitation through human trafficking, and with refugees.
In the remotest part of France in a place that isn’t even big enough to warrant the name village, we came across two women working incredibly hard to combat the effects human trafficking for the purpose of sexual exploitation, and refugees. They were introduced to us by the wonderful and incredibly generous Mel Pledger and Sharon Bott, who were taking us through training that will be of huge benefit to Invisible Traffick GB – but more of that later.
There was no such thing as a polite getting-to-know you period, more of a hold-your-nose and dive in scenario, as we jumped headfirst into the subject of trafficking for the purposes of sexual exploitation. These wonderful and inspiring women, Emma and Ronnie, are ‘sisters in arms’ in the fight to offer real and meaningful help to people far less fortunate than themselves, and we found ourselves almost falling over ourselves to share thoughts, experiences and opinions.
What did we find? We found like-minded women of enormous strength and power, full of bravery, humour and compassion. We found a shared sense of outrage and righteous indignation at the plight of so many women (and men), and a mutual passion for our causes.
On a ridiculously beautiful sunny and warm afternoon in February, in the middle of France, we sat drinking wine, laughing, exclaiming and best of all, making plans.
Our meeting went so well we started to plan a joint ‘Celebration of Volunteers’ trip to France, hopefully later in 2017. Watch this space.
As we travel through life, it can be easy to give way to feelings of separateness, but in Emma and Ronnie we were reminded that Love – is indeed all around.
A Bientot!
