- February 7, 2025
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For about 1.8 miles they walked in silence, but their message was clear: human trafficking needed to stop.
The group of around 100 people participating in the Walk for Freedom in Port Orange on Saturday, Oct. 14, had been brought together by Thrive Community Church. Participants of the walk wore black and, over their mouths, were yellow bandanas with the names of trafficking victims on one side. On the other, was the word free.
It was at the end of the walk that each person turned the piece of cloth around to represent that individual escaping abuse. The walk was to raise awareness and funds for victims of human trafficking.
"I'm here to raise awareness and raise money for the education for human trafficking," participant Pam Jordan said. "I believe in the cause and I believe it's a global problem that we can do something about locally."
But it wasn't just a group of locals walking that day. Though they weren't physically with them, the group was walking with thousands of other people around the world who were also walking to raise awareness about human trafficking.
The walk is part of the A21 Campaign, a non-profit organization that works to "fight human trafficking, including sexual exploitation and trafficking, forced slave labor, bonded labor, involuntary domestic servitude and child soldiery."
Thrive Event Coordinator Shaylan Keirstead said she had only recently become aware of the seriousness of human trafficking. When Keirstead heard about the walk, she knew it was something she wanted to become involved in and began working to make it happen.
MacKenzie Coleman and Smyrna Clark were among the people that had come out for the walk.
"We're walking here today because human trafficking is a real thing," Coleman said, while Clark added that human trafficking is "a really important cause that people need to be aware about."
Around 24.9 million people are victims of modern-day slavery. Of these, 16 million were exploited for labor, 4.8 million were sexually exploited, and 4.1 million were exploited in state-imposed forced labor, according to a September 2017 report from the International Labor Organization and Walk Free Foundation.
"It's definitely something happening in our area people don't know about," Keirstead said. "Our prayer is to stop it and stop it from happening in the first place."
Heather Prince, chair of the Freedom 7 Human Trafficking Task Force, said that, locally, the group of people that make up the task force meet once a month to talk about this issue and what can be done to help. The task force consists of individuals from St. Johns, Putnam, Flagler and Volusia counties.
"A lot of people don't understand human trafficking is going on in our area and it is," Prince said. "One of the things that we see is that the more awareness that is out, the more that we're getting more victims."
