April Shipton, from Ross-on-Wye, has co-written a duet with her friend, Amy Box, which is all about raising awareness for sex-trafficking in the UK. All of the proceeds will be going to a national charity, Safe From Slavery, which raises awareness on the issue of sex slavery and provides aftercare for survivors of the ordeal.

The song is entitled Thirteen, because this is the average age of sex-trafficking victims in the UK.

April told the Ross Gazette that it was Amy who first got involved with Safe From Slavery. At volunteer training, Amy learned about some awful cases. “People think it’s a third world issue,” April told the Gazette, “but it’s happening here in the UK.”

Safe From Slavery asked Amy, who is a singer/songwriter, to write a charity song, and Amy then asked April to get involved.

Both April and Amy have backgrounds in musical theatre and have sung together in the past. Together they wrote ‘Thirteen’ which follows the story of a girl, who was manipulated and becomes a victim of sex-trafficking.

April told the Gazette that the storyline is based on real events, one of the cases that Amy learned about when she was at the volunteer training with Safe From Slavery.

Thirteen was put up for pre-order on April’s website on October 18th, which is Anti-Slavery Day. So far, £60 has been raised for Safe From Slavery, and £49.84 of that amount was raised on Anti-Slavery Day.

April said that she is delighted with this result, especially as people have not yet heard the song; Amy and April are set to record the song on November 5th, and the song will be debuted at an epic performance at the Maximise Conference in Cheltenham on November 30th.

April said that she and Amy will perform the song on stage, and she hopes that it will be a big, emotional, cathartic spectacle.

April told the Gazette: “My church, Ross-on-Wye Baptist Church has been a huge support in this launch, so I thought it would be fantastic to let local people know this is happening in their town and how they can get involved to support it.”

To pre-order the song, please visit: www.aprilshipton.co.uk/thirteen.

April added that a large part of her and Amy’s aim is to expose the fact that trafficking does happen in the UK, and that so many of the victims are so young.