Pope calls for anti-human trafficking meeting at Vatican
August 23, 2013 - On the request of Pope Francis, Catholic Church experts will gather
in November with the aim of better tackling the growing scourge of human trafficking.
“We must be grateful to Pope Francis for having identified one of the most important
social dramas of our time and that he has had enough trust in our Catholic institutions
to ask us to arrange this working group,” said Bishop Marcelo Sánchez Sorondo, chancellor
of the Vatican’s Pontifical Academy of Sciences. The academy along with the Vatican’s
Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences and the World Federation of Catholic Medical
Associations will meet to discuss a Vatican action plan to help combat what is often
referred to as the modern slave trade. “Trafficking in human beings is a terrible
offense against human dignity and a grave violation of fundamental human rights,”
Bishop Sánchez Sorondo told Vatican Radio on Thursday. “In this century, it acts
as a catalyst in the creation of criminal assets.” The group will meet at the headquarters
of both the academies in Vatican City. Bishop Sánchez Sorondo observed that
the United Nations has begun to be aware of this growing crime “only in 2000,” together
with the effects of globalization. “The alarming increase in the trade in human beings
is one of the pressing economic, social and political risks associated with the process
of globalization,” he said. “It’s a serious threat to the security of individual nations
and a question of international justice.” A 2012 report from the United Nations
Office on Drugs and Crime on human trafficking says around 20.9 million victims are
forced into labor globally. Each year, about two million people are victims of sex
trafficking, 60 percent of whom are girls. The practice is not limited to poor and
underdeveloped areas, but extends to all world regions. “Some observers argue that,
in a few years, trafficking in persons will exceed the trafficking of drugs and arms,
making it the most lucrative criminal activity in the world,” the bishop warned.
(Source: CNA)