Anti-human trafficking
campaign gets a boost
Ford Models’ Katie Ford, also a roving United Nations ambassador for the campaign against human trafficking, recently visited the country and met with US Ambassador Kristie Kenney to discuss steps to raise awareness and garner more support for the world’s 27 million human trafficking and modern-day slavery victims, most of whom come from the Asia/Pacific, including the Philippines.
Ford was also in talks with local non-government organization Visayan Forum Foundation founder and executive director Cecilia Flores-Oebanda, and spent time with some survivors at their halfway house in North Harbor. As the pioneering NGO involved in the human trafficking cause, the Visayan Forum provides victims shelter, legal assistance and psychosocial aid through counseling and life skills training.
At the recently concluded Ford Supermodel of the World Philippine finals, where she served on the panel of judges, Ford gave a speech on the realities of human trafficking and turned over a personal donation to the Visayan Forum and with it, the promise of assistance in putting a stop to such crimes against human rights.