Building bridges to combat modern day slavery

The US Embassy to the Holy See and the Miami-based St Thomas University School of Law hosted a conference on Wednesday on the global crime of human trafficking.

Focussing on the need to redouble efforts to combat modern-day slavery, the conference brought together delegates to discuss merging the resources of governments, civil society, the private sector and faith-based communities in the most effective ways.

“Faith propelling action against slavery. It’s as relevant against modern slavery as it was in ancient times, or in the early years of the American experiment,” said Luis CdeBaca, US Ambassador-at-Large to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons during his keynote speech.

Speaking with Vatican Radio following his address, Ambassador CdeBaca praised the work of the Catholic Church, saying that in the United States the Church is active in administering victim service programmes of the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).

“But it’s not just doing the work with HHS. Individual parishes, individual priests and nuns are working with trafficking victims, working with the trafficking task forces,” Ambassador CdeBaca said.

Listen to Ambassador Luis CdeBaca’s full interview with Kelsea Brennan-Wessels: