Thanks for taking the time to visit my JustGiving page.
I am self-funding this expedition I am undertaking, so every single penny raised goes straight to the charity.
Child trafficking and particularly exploitation is close to my heart. My (extremely abusive and violent) ex partner and his ‘new’ wife ‘took’ my 2 youngest children then aged 3 and 5; what I thought was a short holiday. They disappeared in plain sight. I searched for more than 6 years., visiting Cape Town, South Africa over 25 times, hiring private investigators, lawyers, contacted international child organisations, approached newspapers, walked the streets, wrote to the then English Prime Minister (1994). Eventually I had some sort of ‘contact’, my boys were as distraught as I was and had been told I was dead. My exes wife extorted money from me to the tune of $10,000 US , and a lot of other costs : She put a price on one of my sons head, ransomed me to to get one of them back, refusing to return both. I paid the money. It took another 8 months and another $10,000 US and extra costs I had to pay her to get my other son home. I initially approached the police both in South Africa and UK. South Africa had their own ‘system’. UK authorities said they couldn’t do anything because SA was not part of The Hague Convention. My sons were home and safe and that’s all that mattered. They are adults now, and whilst we all bear the scars, their experience has made them and their siblings the extraordinary people they all are today. I am a mom, first and foremost with 4 now grown up children, and 4 granddaughters, and because the world is a crazy place today, and things like this, and much worse trafficking and abuse continues, I want to try and make a difference - to protect innocent, vulnerable and harmless children any way I can. Hopefully my small effort will make some sort of difference in stopping these dreadful atrocities. I think the work that this charity undertakes is extraordinary. So this is my little bit of just giving. Very very few people know our story as it has been too painful to share. Thank you for reading. And thank you for supporting my nominated charity.
