The fight against human trafficking, a struggle of Pope Francis

30/07/2018

On this inter­na­tion­al day against human traf­fick­ing insti­tut­ed by the Unit­ed Nations, Pope Fran­cis denounced the com­mod­i­fi­ca­tion of all “these broth­ers exploit­ed for crim­i­nal traf­fick­ing”. The fight against traf­fick­ing is a cause dear to the Supreme Pon­tiff. He him­self estab­lished a world day of prayer ded­i­cat­ed to this plague.

“Let us lis­ten to the cry of so many broth­ers exploit­ed for crim­i­nal traf­fick­ing: they are not a com­mod­i­ty, but are human per­sons, and must be con­sid­ered as such. This tweet by Pope Fran­cis, pub­lished for the Inter­na­tion­al Day against Human Traf­fick­ing on July 30, is a fur­ther illus­tra­tion of the Holy Father’s sup­port and com­mit­ment to the dig­ni­ty of the many vic­tims of human trafficking.

The fight against human trafficking, a struggle of Pope Francis

Accord­ing to UNICEF, 28% of vic­tims of traf­fick­ing are chil­dren. A per­cent­age that even reach­es 64% and 62% in sub-Saha­ran Africa, Cen­tral Amer­i­ca and the Caribbean and large­ly con­cerns refugee, migrant or dis­placed chil­dren, reports the UN agency.

An annual day of prayer against trafficking

Since 2015, Pope Fran­cis has cho­sen Feb­ru­ary 8, the litur­gi­cal mem­o­ry of Saint Josephine Bakhi­ta, the first saint in Sudan, to estab­lish a day of prayer against human traf­fick­ing. On the eve of this third World Day of Prayer and Reflec­tion against Traf­fick­ing last Feb­ru­ary, the Pope launched an appeal, tar­get­ing in par­tic­u­lar this year the vic­tims of traf­fick­ing in migra­to­ry flows.

“Hav­ing lit­tle chance of using reg­u­lar chan­nels, many migrants decide to ven­ture in oth­er ways, where abus­es of all kinds, such as exploita­tion and slav­ery, often await them,” the Holy Father said, adding that crim­i­nal orga­ni­za­tions, ded­i­cat­ed to human traf­fick­ing, use these migra­tion routes to hide their own vic­tims, migrants and refugees.

“A crime against humanity”

“Traf­fick­ing in per­sons is a crime against human­i­ty. We must join forces to free the vic­tims and stop this increas­ing­ly aggres­sive crime,” were the words of Pope Fran­cis at the begin­ning of his pon­tif­i­cate. In 2015, dur­ing the first edi­tion of the day of prayer, Car­di­nal Peter Turk­son, then Pres­i­dent of the Pon­tif­i­cal Coun­cil for Jus­tice and Peace, recalled that mil­lions of peo­ple through­out the world were deprived of free­dom and forced “to live prac­ti­cal­ly in a sit­u­a­tion of slavery”.

The strength of civil societies

Today, Pope Fran­cis wants all human­i­ty to become aware of this scourge, which goes beyond the respon­si­bil­i­ty of one State or anoth­er. “I invite every­one, cit­i­zens and insti­tu­tions, to join forces to pre­vent traf­fick­ing, guar­an­tee pro­tec­tion and assis­tance to vic­tims,” he said at his gen­er­al audi­ence on Feb­ru­ary 7, before receiv­ing two days lat­er mem­bers of the Sainte-Marthe Group. This infor­mal organ­i­sa­tion brings togeth­er polit­i­cal and reli­gious fig­ures from the forces of order and uni­ver­si­ty research “to con­front the caus­es and effects of human traf­fick­ing, which con­tin­ues to cause untold human suffering”.

The need for awareness

“On the sub­ject of traf­fick­ing, there is much igno­rance”, the Holy Father final­ly advanced before the par­tic­i­pants of the World Day of Prayer Against Traf­fick­ing this year. Accord­ing to him, “traf­fick­ing is a real form of slav­ery, unfor­tu­nate­ly more and more wide­spread, which affects all coun­tries, even the most devel­oped. It affects the most vul­ner­a­ble in soci­ety: women and girls, chil­dren, the dis­abled, the poor­est, those who come from sit­u­a­tions of fam­i­ly and social disintegration.

Achieve integral human development

These are seri­ous chal­lenges that only the “inte­gral human devel­op­ment” of coun­tries of extreme pover­ty can solve, accord­ing to the Pope; that is, “the devel­op­ment of every man and of the whole man”, with­out con­sid­er­ing devel­op­ment sole­ly through an eco­nom­ic and social prism, but rather an approach that also embraces cul­ture, fam­i­ly life and religion.

La lutte contre la traite humaine, un combat du Pape François