Trafficking in Human Beings should be defined as
“a crime against humanity” in both national and international law, and
the Catholic Church needs to become more aware of “the gravity of the
situation” and to become more fully engaged in combating this criminal
activity.
These were some of the main conclusions of an
international workshop on “Human Trafficking: Modern Slavery”, held in
the Vatican, 2-3 November, at the expressed wish of Pope Francis.
The event brought together 82 participants from
Churches and States, as well as NGOs and organizations of civil society
involved in combating this criminal activity, Archbishop Marcelo Sanchez
Sorondo told a press conference, November 4. He said the workshop came
up with 50 proposals – a draft of which was given to the press, and
added that a statement would be issued in the coming days.
The Vatican workshop calls on every country to
develop “national action plans” to combat human trafficking, and
advocates the creation of “international or regional courts” to
prosecute traffickers. It also asks for a study of ‘the role of the
internet in promoting and helping human trafficking’.
It calls for ‘more concrete involvement’ by all
the Bishops Conferences worldwide, as well as the clergy and lay people,
parishes, schools and the media, to combat human trafficking.
It encourages people everywhere to join in the
effort to combat HT by denouncing the activities of criminal
organizations, whether sexual exploitation, forced labor, drug
trafficking, trafficking of babies or children, debt bondage, bonded
labor, forced begging (beggars are often victims of human trafficking),
and other activities where human beings are coerced by threat or
violence to perform activities that bring a profit to the trafficker. It
urges people ‘not to buy goods or services’ that have involved such
criminal activity in their production.
Furthermore, it recommended that the Holy See sign
and/or ratify the relevant international legal instruments in the
field, including the Palermo Protocol and the Council of Europe
Convention on Action against Human Trafficking. It also asks for the
insertion of ‘an end to human trafficking and all forms of slavery’ in
the new post-2015 Global Development Goals.
Asked at the press conference about the dimensions
of human trafficking, Professor Juan Jose’ Llach, the Director of the
Argentinean Centre of Study of Government, Enterprises, Society and the
Economy (GESE), said that to-date “academicians haven’t studied human
trafficking because these activities are illegal and statistics are hard
to obtain”. He said the most reliable estimates say that 29.8 million
people are caught up in human trafficking. Some 50% of these are in
“forced labor”, both in private and state sectors.
Sexual exploitation is a significant part of
‘forced labor’, he said, and many of the victims are children or
adolescents and in Latin America, for example; many have been killed
when they tried to escape this slavery.
Among the main causes of human trafficking, Prof.
Llach listed: poverty, unemployment or under-employment, lack of
education, and the break-up of families. Moreover, he said, where the
state is weak, corruption thrives as does the risk of human trafficking.
In a booklet prepared for the workshop, Archbishop
Sanchez Sorondo, said recent reports assert that today human
trafficking has become “more profitable” than trafficking in drugs and
arms. Prof. Llach noted that all these activities are operated
by criminal organizations “that are like highways on which many vehicles
can go”.
Professor Werner Arber, President of the
Pontifical Academy of Sciences, said the workshop focused on “those
practices that manipulate human beings for commercial interests”, such
as human trafficking of poorly qualified workers, prostitution,
including child prostitution, and trafficking in human organs. He
expressed the workshop’s conviction that “the involvement of the
Catholic Church will have a big impact on improving the situation”.
Dr. Jose Maria Simon Castelli, President of the
World Federation of the Catholic Medical Associations, said the workshop
revealed an ‘epochal change’ by asking for the elimination of
prostitution: “Up to now we have tolerated it, but now we want it
eliminated”. He said there was ‘total consensus’ that there should be ‘zero tolerance of prostitution’.
Archbishop Sanchez Sorondo revealed that Pope
Francis told him during the meeting that, “I care greatly about what you
are doing. I really want to do something about this”. The
archbishop recalled how Francis was actively engaged in combating human
trafficking as archbishop of Buenos Aires and as Pope is determined to
do even more to try to end it. He sees the failure of the international
community to take note of the seriousness of the situation as the result
of ‘the globalization of indifference”, which allows this criminal
activity to prosper internationally.
Not only has he spoken out against it in public, the archbishop said,
soon after becoming Pope he asked the Pontifical Academies of Sciences
and Social Sciences, address this affront to human dignity, and so they
organized this workshop together with the World Federation of Catholic
Medical Associations. But this is only the first step, the archbishop
stated. He announced that the Vatican academies will host a second
workshop in 2014, and a four-day conference in 2015.