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Religious say helping victims will entail stopping traffickers
Bringing the light of hope to
ending human trafficking means confronting the brutal "darkness" of evil
that is driving those who exploit others, said a number of women
religious helping victims.
Already "thousands and thousands of us are working in networks across
the world to dispel this darkness, and it's not happening, so we have to
ask ourselves, 'What do we do?'" said Loretto Sister Imelda Poole.
Those active in the fight will
have to "look at the darkness -- the demand, the traffickers, to see if
we can work more closely with the police, the justice (system) and, as a
church, let us open the doors wider and wider to do research, to really
look at the phenomenon, to be as clever as the traffickers," she said.
She and others spoke at a Vatican news conference Feb. 3 in the run-up
to the church's first International Day of Prayer and Awareness Against
Human Trafficking to be celebrated every Feb. 8, the feast of St.
Josephine Bakhita.
The International Labor Organization and the U.N. Office on Drugs and
Crime estimate at least 21 million people are victims of human
trafficking worldwide, and 2.5 million more people fall into the snares
of traffickers each year. The ILO estimates human trafficking generates
more than $32 billion a year -- the third most-profitable "business"
after drugs and arms trafficking.
Comboni Missionary Sister Valeria Gandini, who works on trafficking and
migration issues in Sicily, said people who pay for sex "have a great
responsibility in trafficking" because "they are the ones who directly
abuse the girl," and the money they hand to the prostitute heads straight to the criminal networks running the industry.
She said that as she is ministering to women on the street, she sees men
ranging from grandfathers to young teens on mopeds driving up to
proposition the women.
"There is a lack of a sense of responsibility" and awareness that their actions have consequences on others, she said.
Often people are ignorant of the coercive hold traffickers have on these
women, thinking the women are freely and willingly prostituting
themselves, she said.
As part of their work in preventing trafficking, Sister Gandini said
they hand out to "clients" on the streets as well as to people in school
and parishes a letter explaining the poverty, trickery, coercion and
risks to which the women are exposed.
The hope is that helping people recognize the plight of victims, and the
need to respect and protect human dignity will help reduce the demand,
she said.
"In order to understand what human trafficking is, it is necessary to
meet victims, to listen to them, look at them in the eyes, embrace
them," Sister Gandini said.
So often victims "do not ask for help and they live silently in fear and shame -- a silence that we find deafening," she said.
As a way to raise awareness, the International Union of Superiors
General, which includes the superiors of some 1,900 religious orders of
women around the world, and the Union of Superiors General, which
represents male religious orders worldwide, launched the website
a-light-against-human-trafficking.info for the day of prayer, asking
people to "shine a light" on the often-hidden problem of human
trafficking.
Cardinal Peter Turkson, president of the Pontifical Council for Justice
and Peace, said the day of prayer is meant to expand awareness and
prayer on a global scale "to the very depths of this evil and its
farthest reaches" and inspire people to move from awareness to action.
The only way to stop the worldwide crime of trafficking, he said, is to
respond in a way that is as far-reaching, global and coordinated as the
traffickers.
Women's religious orders came together to form the international
network, "Talitha Kum" in 2004. The network is one of more than a dozen
networks that the superiors general have formed to educate and warn
potential victims of trafficking, to work to combat the poverty that
feeds the trade in human beings, and to rescue and provide shelter and
rehabilitation for the victims.