“The World of Human Trafficking”
Young Girls Being Sold for Sex
February 22, 2018
The sexual exploitation of young girls does not escape anyone’s world and especially those of us who live in southwest Florida.
It is estimated that one hundred thousand to three hundred thousand children are trafficked in the United States each year. Seventy percent of these victims are forced into sex trafficking. In the United State the average age of introduction is twelve to fourteen years of age. Eighty-five percent of the victims are women and of that number fifty percent are children. This horrible crime has no boundaries. Florida is number #3 nationally behind New York and Texas.
Please join us to hear Dennis Solon, Community Relations Director for the Southwest Florida Regional Human Trafficking Coalition. He will be joined by former victim “Jamie” who is now president of the Wayne Foundation. Learn about the problem of Human Trafficking in SW FL and how we each can help. We have learned that our citizens are becoming our first line of defense against this heinous crime. If you see something, say something. You can only sell a drug once, however, you can sell a child over and over again.
Dennis and his wife Martha along with two of their four children moved from Dayton, Ohio to Fort Myers, Florida, in July, 1984. He worked as a regional sales manager in central Florida for West Publishing, now Thomson-Reuters. He retired in December of 2001. Since his retirement, he has written and published a book titled Just Call Me Jane.
Dennis presently volunteers for Southwest Florida Regional Human Trafficking Coalition where he is a program presenter and Community Relations Director.
Jamie is president of the Wayne Foundation. This foundation works very closely with rescued victims. Jami was trafficked when she was a young teenager and now serves as a victim’s advocate.”