Pope
Francis received a group of non-resident Ambassadors to the Holy See on
Thursday in the Clementine Hall of the Apostolic Palace at the Vatican. The diplomats represent Algeria, Iceland, Denmark, Lesotho, Palestine, Sierra Leone, Cape Verde, Burundi, Malta, Sweden, Pakistan, Zambia, Norway, Kuwait, Burkina Faso, Uganda and Jordan.
The Holy Father focused his remarks to his guests on the scourge of human trafficking, denouncing the practice as a “real form of slavery” and calling for renewed and concerted efforts to end the inhuman trade.
Pope Francis said that the trafficking of persons is an evil that involves every country – even the most developed – and harms the weakest and most vulnerable members of society, especially women and girls, children, the disabled, the poorest of the poor, and anyone affected by a disintegration of family or social life.
“In these,” he said, “we Christians see the face of Jesus Christ, who identified himself with the least and the most needy.” Calling the persistence of the trade in human persons, “shameful,” Pope Francis said, “Every person of goodwill, whether he professes religion or not, cannot allow these women, these men, these children to be treated as objects: cheated, raped, often sold several times, for different purposes, and eventually killed, or at least, ruined in body and mind, and finally discarded and abandoned.”
The Pope went on to say, “Trafficking in human persons is a crime against humanity.” He added, “We must join forces to free the victims and to stop this ever more aggressive crime, which threatens not only individual persons, but also the foundational values of society, as well as international security and justice, along with the economy, family structure and social life.”
The Holy Father called on the international community to work in greater concert to develop more effective strategies to combat human trafficking, so that in no part of the world might men and women be used as a means, but always be respected in their inviolable dignity.