Mobilisation of the Church against Human Trafficking

The Church network is a force for fighting against human trafficking: Such is the conviction which motivates the organizers of an international congress to fight this “very real plague”. The congress is organized by the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace and the Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales, which is working on human trafficking in partnership with the London police. 
 
This initiative which will take place on May 8, 2012, at the Vatican, has also received the support of the English Ambassador to the Holy Sea. A report states that everyday “men, women and children are bought and sold”. They are “enslaved” for sexual exploitation, domestic work and forced labour. Read the testimony of Jana, a victim of human trafficking.
 

Trafficking of human beings is then «very real» and is even ranked today as the “second most criminal enterprise in the world”, after the trafficking of illegal weapons.

The organizers of the congress believe that “with 1.1 billion Catholics in the world, the Catholic Church can use its global network to fight against this plague”. The congress will study particular ways in which the different authorities can work together to abolish the illegal trade of human beings.
 
Speakers from the whole world are expected – Lithuania, Nigeria, Thailand, South Africa, United States, Europe  – among them will be Cardinal Peter Kodwo Appiah Turkson, President of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace; Sophie Hayes, a victim of trafficking, who will tell her own story; the assistant director of the British Center against human trafficking; Caritas Lithuania and the religious foundress of Albania Hope – an anti-trafficking organization; the leaders of the London Police Department for organized crime, of the Polish Police Force and of the FBI.

ROME, Monday, May 7, 2012 (ZENIT.org)