One of the striking features of innovative interfaith work is the very high proportion of women and girls who are involved, despite the received image of mostly male religious leaders in dialogue. Of the 687 young people who applied to be one of our 34 Faiths Act Fellows, there were 487 women and 200 men. Of those selected, 25 are women, and 9 young men. Of the multi-faith volunteer groups that our last group of Faith Fellows set up to continue their community work after their work ended, around 60% in the UK were teenage girls and young women – a high proportion of them Muslim.
This is, of course, typical of the willingness of women of faith to make new commitments, innovate, and take risks. The women who have inspired me most recently have shared these attributes: they are the Catholic Sisters who are dealing with sexual trafficking.
It would be hard to pick out any particular one. That would be the last thing they would want. They work together, across continents, in networks. They call sexual trafficking the new slavery. Some work at the UN, the equivalents of the William Wilberforces of old. But the work of most is much more at grassroots, demanding and sometimes dangerous.
Nuns work with the police, get girls out of brothels, brave local mafias. They seem a long way from the old Hollywood movie nuns with their wimples and distinctive habits, bobbing out of cloisters to smile at Bing Crosby in a clerical collar. It is hard to remember that, not too long ago, they had to seek permission from bishops to study gynaecology, and some were even advised by their Mother Superior on how to vote.
Their celibacy is chosen. They give themselves entirely to caring for trafficked women, protecting them in safe houses, educating about the dangers of “attractive” job offers overseas, helping them escape from vicious pimps, making safe their return to their families in the midst of threats. This does not make celibacy easy or less of a sacrifice. Their spirituality is not incidental either. Read more
Sources
- Tony Blair in The Huffington Post
- Image: Franciscan Sisters of Christian Charity