VIEW, Issue five, 2012


Website: viewdigital.org


Why I got involved in the fight


By Pete Kernoghan – a member of No More Traffik On Our Streets – a human trafficking awareness campaign


Image: Laura Curran I


n November 2006 I was in Pattaya, Thailand, with a band I played in called Blue- tree. Pattaya was such a culture shock for a middle class boy from Belfast like my- self. I had never experienced something as extreme as this place. It was a small place but it had more than 30,000 female prostitutes. That figure did not include the children that were available to buy and exploit. As we drove around the city we passed a beach where our guide told us this was the place where people bought and sold children.


That was a turning point in my life. I came home completely shocked to the core. All that ran around inside my head was ‘I need to do some- thing about this’. So myself and Aaron Boyd, another member of the band, set up a char- ity that helped tackle child sex exploita- tion in Cambodia. We raised money and aware-


ness as we toured with the band. We were able to put money into some projects in Cam- bodia. But that was not enough for me, this issue had captured me, I


to tackle the issue of human trafficking on the other side of the globe but it is something different in knowing that it also happens in your home city. It was easy for me to disconnect what happens in South East Asia from my everyday life. As I got to understand what was happening


mine, Stephen and Shemek, about this issue that faces Northern Ireland. They got the same feeling that I had. We helped to set up No More Traffick On Our Streets. Last month we had more than 20 events in Belfast to raise awareness about human trafficking.


• For more information go to http://www.nomoretraffik.com/


here my whole perspective changed. It is com- pletely different to think that some of the people I walked past on the street may be here against their will and may be being forced to do things they do not want to do. Since I was a kid I hated when things were not fair. The issue of human traf- ficking is an extreme form of this; people with power who are taking advantage of people and that is just not fair. In November 2011, I told two friends of


It is one thing


problem it was becom- ing in my own country.


about it, talk more about it, and as time went on I began to see what a massive


began to read more


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