The claim was made public recently due to a requested court inquiry of several priests who served as vicars for Opus Dei in that country between 1991 and 2015.

The Argentine Public Prosecutor has asked a judge to approve the inquiry of the former vicars for the alleged crime of human trafficking and labour exploitation based on a complaint filed two years ago by 44 women.

The women claimed to have been recruited by the Catholic organisation when they were minors and subjected to a regime of semi-slavery in Opus Dei's homes, according to the Argentine newspaper Clarín.

Read More

It's an easy enough mistake to make. After all, the end of America's civil war and the Thirteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution - both in 1865 - brought an end to slavery in the U.S. And the British Slavery Abolition Act in 1834 ended slavery in the West Indies, Mauritius and South Africa.

But many countries didn't outlaw slavery until the 20th century. In fact, it wasn't until 1981 that Mauritania finally abolished slavery - becoming the last country on earth to declare an end to this dehumanizing practice.

Human trafficking

But tragically, slavery did not completely end in 1981. It continues to this very day under a new name: human trafficking.

The U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime defines human trafficking as "the recruitment, transport, transfer, harboring or receipt of a person by such means as threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud or deception for the purpose of exploitation."

Data from the UNODC's 2022 Global Report on Trafficking in Persons reveals that in 2020 approximately 50,000 victims of human trafficking were detected as reported by 141 nations. (see: Human Trafficking FAQs).

But the number of undetected and unreported victims is far higher.

According to the International Labour Organisation, 50 million people were living in modern slavery in 2021.

Of these people, 28 million were in forced labour, and 22 million were trapped in forced marriage. And more than three million children remain in forced labour with half of them in commercial sexual exploitation (see: Modern Slavery).

Child slaves

As reported in the recent U.N. World Day Against Trafficking in Persons: "Leave No Child Behind in the Fight Against Human Trafficking," shockingly, one in three victims of human trafficking is a child.

And these "children are subjected to various forms of trafficking, including forced labour, crime, begging, illegal adoption, sexual abuse and the online dissemination of abusive images, and some are also recruited into armed groups."

"Leave No Child Behind in the Fight Against Human Trafficking" emphasises the importance of seriously addressing the root causes of trafficking such as poverty and violence.

There needs to be a special focus on the trafficking of unaccompanied refugee minors, which highlights the need for governments to urgently put into place comprehensive safeguards to especially protect these extremely vulnerable little ones (see: End human trafficking day and World day against trafficking in Persons).

Here are additional excellent resources in the fight against human trafficking - Polaris, International Catholic Migration Commission and the Vatican's Migrants and Refugees Section.

I recently attended an excellent webinar conducted by the Alliance to End Human Trafficking. Please check it out.

Refuse to be indifferent

To help someone in the U.S. who may be the victim of modern day slavery, call, or urge them to call, the National Human Trafficking Hotline at 1-888-373-7888. This hotline has multi-language capabilities.

For help outside the U.S., go to the Global Modern Slavery Directory website.

We have a lot of tools here to help us end the scourge of modern day slavery. Let's get involved. And let's get our parishes involved. Let's refuse to be indifferent to human trafficking!

For as Pope Francis said, "It is not possible to remain indifferent before the knowledge that human beings are bought and sold like goods."

• First published in WNY Catholic
• Tony Magliano is an internationally syndicated Catholic social justice and peace columnist.

The Government has also disbanded a group set up to provide advice on this international crime.

Members of the former Modern Slavery Leadership Advisory Group say that, by failing to act, New Zealand will fall behind its international partners and put businesses at risk.

Human trafficking is the fastest growing global crime, Caritas Aotearoa New Zealand warns.

In 2024 it was estimated that approximately 50 million people are currently enslaved and exploited worldwide. This estimate has increased by 10 million since 2019.

Not a priority

After disestablishing the group in May, Workplace Relations and Safety Minister ACT's Brooke van Velden said modern slavery is not a Government priority.

Several former group members are frustrated with the current Government's failure to make businesses publicly report on their efforts to address exploitation risks in their operations and supply chains.

It was a policy the Labour party had been keen to introduce.

The former group members are concerned what the lack of action will mean for New Zealand.

Legislation vital

Legislation is necessary to bring New Zealand into step with a number of key trading partners and to meet our domestic and international consumers' expectations, says the group's former chair Rob Fyfe.

"We have a proud heritage as a nation standing up for what's right and fair. Yet our voice is now missing on this issue ..." he says.

Like World Vision, Caritas NZ says the Government's inaction is out of step with strong public and business support for modern slavery legislation.

World Vision says it surveyed over 200 Kiwi businesses. 70 percent have no mechanisms in place to address modern slavery.

Without legislation, many won't examine their supply chains and procurement practices.

Our human rights record

New Zealand's human rights record was examined at the United Nations earlier this year.

The US and UK were among 14 countries that recommended our Government strengthen its policies on modern slavery and forced supply chain labour.

Modern slavery specialist Gary Shaw says the Government's inaction misses the opportunity to reinforce national values of fairness, equality and freedom. It also misses an opportunity to protect the business community.

The Government's attempt to protect business from additional regulation doesn't make sense in this instance, Shaw says.

Many companies are aware our trade standards will need to match up with those of our largest trading partners.

But Shaw says our response will be haphazard and inconsistent due to the lack of government direction.

In addition to the need for agreements covering the country's trade deals, Labour's Camilla Belich says there is a moral imperative to act.

Those being exploited are the most important, she says. Then come the New Zealanders unwittingly allowing those practices to continue.

We don't want New Zealand to be seen as allowing exploitation to continue when we could prevent it.

Source

• Newsroom
• Caritas

These crime rings have revolutionised an industry that turns ordinary citizens into slaves.

Trillion-dollar industry

Interpol says human trafficking and scam compounds in Southeast Asia are worth more than US$3 trillion in illicit revenue a year.

The industry emerged from Cambodia's south coast during the Covid-19 pandemic, where Chinese syndicates honed their criminal enterprises with impunity.

Cambodia has insisted the scourge has been exaggerated by journalists.

This is despite the rescue and repatriation of thousands of people from across Asia who were duped into accepting false job offers.

They were then forced into "pig butchering" out of hidden compounds in secret locations.

Slavers' tools

Romance scams, cryptos, real estate, online gambling, and extortion are just some of the tools of a dark trade.

It was developed alongside legitimate Chinese investors who turned Sihanoukville into a casino mecca known as the "Las Vegas of the East" by the mid-2010s.

Those who fail to meet quotas are beaten, tortured and held for ransom or traded among the criminal networks.

Those who give in and perform are rewarded with cash payouts and promises they can go home and have sex.

"Many women have been trafficked and traded," said a European rescue specialist, who declined to be named.

"If they refuse to scam, they are offered as prizes and passed around. Some even work as models in love scams, performing online for a targeted victim."

Trafficking rife

Rumors of Chinese and Southeast Asians being trafficked first surfaced in late 2020 when some 400,000 legitimate Chinese workers fled Cambodia as the pandemic took hold.

Thousands more, who were associated with illegal gambling, remained, predominantly in Sihanoukville.

More than a thousand buildings, including dozens of casinos, were left empty and at least 500 half-built skyscrapers were abandoned.

That's when human trafficking was kicked from traditional perceptions — of men being press-ganged onto fishing boats or young village girls sold into brothels — into the billion-dollar orbit of cyber-crimes.

Diplomatic sources say this industry makes about $20 billion annually in Cambodia.

Neighboring governments were soon flooded with pleas for help from stricken families whose loved ones had answered advertisements for high-paid jobs only to find themselves trapped in and around Sihanoukville.

Crisis in Cambodia

By late 2021, the embassies of Indonesia, Vietnam, Thailand, Pakistan, and China had all taken what was then a highly unusual step.

They issued warnings about "the situation" and told Cambodia to act, but those reports remained off the radar in Cambodia's well-oiled state-run press.

By March the following year, a group of 35 NGOs told the Cambodian government to urgently address "a crisis of forced labour, slavery and torture".

At the same time, reports detailing kidnapping and extortion rackets began hitting the international headlines.

"The continued existence of these operations is a tragedy, and we are horrified that Cambodia is being used as a base for such inhumanity.

"All relevant actors must immediately guarantee that no one is subject to slavery or torture within Cambodia," they said in a joint communique.

Even an annual report by Cambodia's National Committee for Counter Trafficking reported caseloads in 2021 had more than doubled to 359 over the previous year.

Numbers had been expected to fall given travel and security restrictions imposed because of Covid.

It also found that surrogate mothers, babies, organ transplants, labourers, and sex workers were among those trafficked.

Cambodia had emerged as a trafficking destination as opposed to its history as a transit point, the Committee discovered.

Slaves and slavers

At two press conferences, well covered by the international media in Kuala Lumpur, heartbroken parents cried and pleaded for the release of their children, some as young as 17.

Their children also spoke to reporters from mobile phones they had been handed to scam people with.

"We work more than 15 hours a day. They give us instructions to scam people worldwide," one victim said.

"If we do not perform, they hit us. More than 30 of us have been mistreated because we under-performed."

The evidence was mounting and pointing to senior leaders, real estate tycoons and corrupt businessmen with ties to organised crime, and Chinese nationals with Cambodian passports, as the culprits.

Wan Kuok-koi popularly known as Broken Tooth, former leader of the Macau branch of the 14K triad, was among them.

That should have been enough to prompt Cambodian authorities into action, but they again claimed these stories were exaggerated.

One official described such cases as "immigration misconduct," and another even implied that they, too, were victims.

"Criminals are choosing human trafficking as a career," then interior minister Sar Kheng said, adding: "They won't let it go. They are taking advantage of us when we are facing a crisis."

Pig butchering — where the victim is gradually lured or forced into handing over more money — continued.

This angered the Chinese government amid perceptions that Beijing was, at best, incapable of controlling its criminal element abroad or, even worse, supporting those networks.

China's response

Authorities in Phnom Penh declined the Chinese government's request for special powers to arrest its own nationals involved in criminal activity.

Instead, they swore they would end the scourge before local elections were to be held in mid-2022. That didn't happen.

But China withheld Cambodia's much needed investment dollars and in making its displeasure known, Beijing censors approved the release of "No More Bets" — a movie.

It tells the story of a Chinese pair trapped and trafficked into compounds in Southeast Asia.

The movie was a smash hit in the People's Republic, where authorities refused a Cambodian request to have the film banned.

The United States then dropped Cambodia to its lowest tier on the annual human trafficking list and later imposed sanctions backed by Canada and the United Kingdom.

Rescue and repression

Rescue operations emerged with the help of independent NGOs, foreign embassies, and Interpol operating with local police.

They gathered pace as fears the country's tourism industry — still reeling from the pandemic — would not recover amid all the negative headlines.

A crackdown did follow, and criminal networks scattered, initially to the Vietnamese and Thai borders and further afield into Laos and Myanmar.

There criminal syndicates have taken advantage of the civil war and can operate with impunity from places like Shwe Kokko, where some 10,000 victims are housed in one compound.

Tourism has still not recovered in Cambodia, but the crackdown has escalated in conjunction with Chinese law enforcement.

Two operations in March netted 700 Chinese nationals, all are suspected cyber criminals and to be deported for running scam and human trafficking operations.

However, the scourge is far from eliminated, and recruiters in Cambodia have shifted targets.

No longer favoring Chinese and Southeast Asians, human traffickers are now focused on Central Asia, luring in nationals from Pakistan, India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh.

• First published in UCA News
• Luke Hunt is a UCA News columnist and author and academic. He is an expert on East Asia's socio-political issues.

This kind of fasting has its place.

However, if you want to discover what fasting is especially meant to achieve, fast in a way that will bring about a holy change; change for the better for you, change for a better world.

A fast that will make a difference in helping build a better world, is a Christian witness that helps advance the Kingdom of God.

It is a fast that is evangelisation in action.

Let's take our inspiration from the prophet Isaiah:

"Is this not, rather, the fast that I choose: releasing those bound unjustly, untying the throngs of the yoke; setting free the oppressed, breaking off every yoke?

"Is it not sharing your bread with the hungry, bringing the afflicted and the homeless into your house; clothing the naked when you see them, and not turning your back on your own flesh?"

This passage from Isaiah insists that we fast from what Pope Francis continually calls the "culture of indifference." A culture that doesn't care that there are fellow human beings among us who in one way, or another, are bound unjustly.

Countless people struggle daily to find sufficient food, clean water, decent shelter, adequate clothing and medical care.

Around the world many people are locked up in prisons for practising their faith in God, or for political, racial, ethnic reasons or for speaking out.

Others are unfairly imprisoned for minor offences.

Still, more, some 50 million people are bound up by human trafficking - modern slavery.

Then there are those who carry the heavy yoke of running from their native countries because of

• gang violence,
• war,
• desperate poverty,
• inhabitable climate change situations,
• corrupt regimes and
• greed, selfishness, and indifference.

These people seek safety and decent work somewhere, anywhere, in order to support themselves and their families, only to find that in coming to New Zealand they might part of an immigration scam run on social media or What'sApp.

Then there are the children, too little to fend for themselves, too weak to survive when times are tough.

They are often the first to die from hunger, poverty, disease, child labour, and that endless scourge: war!

The big fast, the uncomfortable fast

So, if you and I are ready for the big fast, which will often be uncomfortable and even painful at times, then we need to look no further than to the poor and vulnerable, near and far - our needy brothers and sisters.

Many wonderful organisations are dedicated to building peace, serving the poor, and protecting our common earth home. Link up with them and generously give of your time, talent and treasure this Lent - and beyond!

"If you lavish your food on the hungry and satisfy the afflicted; then your light shall rise in the darkness, and your gloom shall become like midday!" (Isaiah 58: 6-10).

• Tony Magliano is an internationally syndicated Catholic social justice and peace columnist.

She said that by doing so, "we could save many lives."

Sister Seli Thomas, a member of the Sisters of Mary Immaculate in Krishnagar, West Bengal, made the call during a Nov 24-26 meeting of Amrat Talitha Kum India, a network of religious sisters involved in anti-trafficking efforts.

"Amrat," which stands for Asian Movement of Women Religious Against Human Trafficking, and which also represents a Hindi term for life-giving water, was founded in 2009 by Sister Jyoti Pinto of the Congregation of the Sisters of the Little Flower of Bethany.

Read More

Recent reports from the U.S. State Department, anti-human trafficking groups, and other global leaders focus on the serious problems of trafficking, forced labour, and modern-day slavery.

The breakdown

In 2021, 27.6 million people worldwide were subjected to forced labour.

That figure comes from a September 2022 report, "Forced Labor and Forced Marriage," authored by the International Labor Organization, the U.N. International Organization for Migration, and the Australia-based human rights advocacy group the Walk Free Foundation.

According to the joint report, 17.3 million people were victims of forced labour exploitation, 6.3 million were victims of forced commercial sexual exploitation, and 3.9 million people were victims of state-imposed forced labour on any given day in the year 2021.

These figures include about 3.3 million children subject to forced labour. Half of these children are sexually exploited for commercial gain.

The Walk Free Foundation on June 16 published its separate analysis, including rankings of individual countries, in the latest edition of its Global Slavery Index.

It estimates that 28 million people were subject to forced labour last year, while another 22 million were found to be in forced marriages.

Forced marriages are particularly prevalent in Arab states and are generally imposed by family members. Women, migrants, refugees, and other people in crisis are disproportionately affected.

The Global Slavery Index estimates that 50 million people — one in 150 — were living in modern slavery at some point in 2021, an increase from 40 million people in 2016.

Notably, there is debate about how to define victims of trafficking and slavery: The U.S. State Department webpage about human trafficking notes that "modern slavery" is not defined in international or U.S. law.

Some instances of forced marriage may meet U.S. or international definitions of human trafficking, but not all cases do. It recommends using only the figures for forced labour.

Despite different views, Grace Forrest, the founding director of Walk Free, emphasised the need to combat trafficking and slavery.

"Modern slavery permeates every aspect of our society," Forrest said in a June 16 statement on the release of the Global Slavery Index.

"It is woven through our clothes, lights up our electronics, and seasons our food.

"At its core, modern slavery is a manifestation of extreme inequality. It is a mirror held to power, reflecting who in any given society has it and who does not. Nowhere is this paradox more present than in our global economy through transnational supply chains."

The Global Slavery Index bases its estimates on thousands of interviews with survivors collected in representative household surveys across 75 countries.

In its reckoning, "modern slavery" refers to exploitative situations in which a person cannot refuse or leave due to threats, violence, coercion, or deception.

It includes forced labour, prison labour, debt bondage, forced marriage, forced commercial sexual exploitation, and the sale and exploitation of children.

People who flee conflict, natural disasters, political repression, or migrate to seek work are particularly vulnerable.

Human trafficking and exploitation: how countries rank

The Global Slavery Index, which includes forced marriage, ranks North Korea the worst: More than one in 10 people are estimated to be in conditions of modern slavery. In Eritrea, about nine in 100 people are estimated to be modern slaves.

About three in 100 people in Mauritania are slaves, with fewer proportionally in Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Tajikistan, and the United Arab Emirates. About one in 100 people in Russia, Afghanistan and Kuwait are in modern slavery.

Over half of all people living in modern slavery are in G20 countries and these countries help fuel enslavement by importing products and supplies reliant on forced labour.

Among G20 countries, India has 11 million people in modern slavery, China has 5.8 million people, Russia has 1.9 million people, Indonesia has 1.8 million, Turkey has 1.3 million and the U.S. has 1.1 million people, according to the report.

Human trafficking and forced labour are closer to home than many Americans think.

The Global Slavery Index warns that migrant workers in the agricultural sector in the U.S. and Canada are vulnerable to forced labour.

The index cites the use of forced prison labour in American public and private prisons. Supply chains to the U.S. market are also at risk of using forced labour, the report says.

Some U.S. visitors to the Caribbean help fuel "sex tourism" reliant upon the sexual exploitation and trafficking of minors.

More in US

The Global Slavery Index ranked countries' governments on various factors related to modern slavery:

• how countries identify and support survivors;
• how criminal justice systems work to prevent modern slavery;
• governments' anti-slavery coordination and accountability at the national and regional level;
• how countries address risk factors, social attitudes, and other institutions that enable modern slavery;
• the extent to which government and business eliminate forced labour from the production of goods and services.

According to the index, the U.K., Australia, and the Netherlands have the strongest government responses to modern slavery, followed by Portugal and the United States. Continue reading

• Kevin J. Jones is a senior staff writer with Catholic News Agency.
• This article first appeared on CathNews in July 2023. On July 27 2024 Julie Clarke from Women on Guard has contacted us advising the latest data they have is 27.6 million people are trapped in forced labour. CathNews is grateful to Julie and Women on Guard for their attention to this detail, their concern for the people behind the statistic and the injustices that are occurring.

Talitha Kum is a Rome-based international network of religious sisters founded by the International Union of Superiors General (UISG). Their networks are active in five continents with the objective of ending human trafficking.

"Prevention was the Asian networks' priority", said Sr Abby Avelino, director of Talitha Kum Asia.

According to Avelino, the issue of human trafficking in Asia has been aggravated by the current socio-economic situation. Many countries in Asia face severe economic crises due to the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic and political conflicts such as Myanmar, Sri Lanka and Pakistan.

"Crises like these increase the number of people who become vulnerable to trafficking, particularly women, girls, young people, migrants and refugees. The predominant forms of domestic and international human trafficking are forced labour, forced marriage and sexual exploitation", said Sr Avelino.

The initiative by Talitha Kum Asia during Covid-19 was to increase its online presence. By hosting monthly webinars, it strengthened the information sharing of anti-trafficking prevention, protection and networking.

"We have organised activities using the Sufficiency Economy Programme, helping women and young people in villages and mountainous areas to manage natural food resources such as herbs and vegetables that can be found in the local forests. This programme has had a satisfying impact on the local community in supporting and promoting capacity building," Sr Avelino notes.

"We launched the Talitha Kum Anti-Trafficking Youth Ambassadors programme in 2021 to engage more young people with the vision and mission of Talitha Kum. Young women and men representing ten countries in Asia were trained to be anti-trafficking youth ambassadors among their peers at the grassroots level," she remarks.

The outcome of this programme is the growing visibility of Talitha Kum network, especially among young people. Talitha Kum Bangladesh and Talitha Kum Vietnam were established in 2021 as an outcome of the growing visibility of the work.

World leaders were also reminded at the Parliamentary Assembly of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe in Birmingham, England, on July 2-6 by US Rep. Chris Smith.

"Our commitment to preventing human trafficking, protecting and helping survivors reclaim their lives and prosecuting those who commit these horrific crimes must be strong, powerful and courageous," he said.

Sources

• Agenzia Fides
• Catholic News

"Let us think of these women and children who in time, without work, separated from their husbands, will be sought out by the ‘vultures' of society. Please, let us protect them," tweeted Pope Francis.

Catholic aid workers' concerns are being broadcast by police.

In Germany, they have been warning for weeks that aid workers, volunteers and refugees should be vigilant at areas where refugees arrive.

They are also tweeting warnings to women and unaccompanied young people in German, Russian and Ukrainian saying they must beware of "suspicious offers of accommodation — contact official agencies only."

Their warnings are timely.

As hundreds of Ukrainian refugees arrive at Munich's main station each day, they run the gauntlet of human traffickers who mingle with aid workers, volunteers and ordinary citizens.

According to several reports, an increasing number of men who want to force women into prostitution are offering "assistance" at the stations.

"Here at the main station, a lot is being done — there is a specialised counselling centre 24 hours a day," the head of the Catholic Railway Station Mission in Munich says.

She and her Protestant counterpart are responsible for the ecumenical refugee reception centre at the station.

"We are on site 24 hours a day; Caritas is here 24 hours a day. It is publicly pointed out in multilingual flyers that the women should be careful. The police are on site. It is not a mass phenomenon, but we have already experienced isolated cases of attempted human trafficking and could be of help to prevent it. I am confident that we have this problem under control here, but it does exist."

Another Caritas spokesperson, said, "There is definitely an attempt to approach these women with their children."

At Berlin's main railway station, mostly older men have been seen holding up signs with offers of accommodation and overnight stays for women, just like real helpers. Suspicions are roused, though, when they show their signs only to certain women. Sometimes they also offer money.

The police have banned certain men from the station premises - but as they haven't committed any crimes, the police could not act further.

On March 15, Valiant Richey (the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe's special representative and coordinator for combating human trafficking) gathered representatives of 17 European countries affected by the humanitarian crisis.

The governments of Austria, France, Germany, Romania and Slovakia report monitoring online searches after a spike was noted in people seeking Ukrainian women for sex and marriage. They also distributed leaflets translated into Ukrainian to inform people on the move of their rights and options.

Unfortunately, the warnings sometimes cause the refugees to distrust innocent parties and genuine offers of help.

Source

• Catholic News Service
• Image: Berlin.de

For a month, detectives from the serious organised crime unit at SAPS national head office have been assisted by crime intelligence agents in tracking the syndicate after reports of the kidnappings of foreigners entering South Africa.

The alleged kingpin was arrested in Centurion in the early hours of Sunday morning after police received information on his location.

Sources close to the investigation said officers followed up information about cellphone devices which the accused, Mohammed Dilpazeer Azam, allegedly used to make ransom calls to his alleged captives' families in Bangladesh.

Read More

The report, How COVID-19's impact on hunger and education is forcing children into marriage, warns that an additional 3.3 million girls globally are at high risk of child marriage.

The World Vison report reveals that the surge in child marriage rates is already clearly taking place; 2020 saw the largest increase in child marriage rates in 25 years.

According to World Vision data, between March to December 2020, child marriages more than doubled in many communities, compared to 2019.

In an assessment of children and families across nine countries in the Asia-Pacific region from April to June 2021, 82% of the children interviewed who were married became married after the start of the pandemic. Read more

But instead, it clearly appears that more often than not, Catholics - much like the general public - make important decisions on who to vote for, and where to come down on crucial issues, based primarily on the political party they affiliate with and from their cultural, economic and political leanings as being either conservative or liberal.

Putting faith on the back burner is not Christocentric, and is not Catholic.

And so when it comes to the life and death issues facing billions of suffering brothers and sisters - born and unborn, in one's nation, as well as in all other countries - Catholics for the most part, don't look, sound or act much different than the larger secular population. And that's not good.

But in the Gospel, Jesus puts forth to his followers this challenging directive: "You are the light of the world. A city set on a mountain cannot be hidden. Nor do they light a lamp and then put it under a bushel basket; it is set on a lampstand, where it gives light to all in the house."

In a world that is so often darkened by what Pope Francis calls the "culture of indifference," we, the modern-day followers of Jesus, like his ancient followers, are called to radiate the Master's light of love upon the various sufferings of countless brothers and sisters.

But we are taking this mandate too lightly - in a fractured and partial way.

In general, I have long found that very often Catholics with conservative leanings, more or less oppose abortion, infanticide, embryonic stem cell research, euthanasia, promiscuous public school sex education and government attacks on religious liberty and traditional marriage.

And in general, I have long found that very often Catholics with liberal leanings, more or less support nonviolent peace initiatives, demilitarization, drastically cutting military budgets and redirecting those funds to end global hunger and poverty, protecting the environment while working to end human-induced climate change, abolishing capital punishment, welcoming migrants and refugees, opposing racism, and fighting to stop human trafficking.

Each of these efforts is morally commendable - to a point.

But the problem is that when it comes to conservative Catholic social action initiatives and liberal Catholic social action initiatives, it most often boils down to "never the twain shall meet."

And this is disastrous - disastrous for our Catholic faith and for all who will continue to suffer because we prefer biased, ideological, narrow-minded tunnel vision to open-minded, heartfelt Catholic dialogue that places the Gospel and Catholic social teaching as our foundation.

Catholic conservatives and Catholic liberals desperately need to pray and take concrete steps in forging a unity designed to work together to develop holistic nonviolent strategies aimed at protecting the life and dignity of every single human being from conception to natural death - with a preferential option for the poorest and most vulnerable, including our common earth-home.

Instead of ranking the life issues, we need to link them, always bearing in mind that a chain is only as strong as its weakest link.

Thus, all the life-links need to be strong!

Imagine what a moral, political, economic, cultural and religious beacon of light the Catholic Church would be if conservative Catholics and liberal Catholics would come together, in a determined way to learn from each other, to pray together and to work together with Christocentric passion building Pope Francis' "culture of encounter" where all life is respected, protected and nurtured!

• Tony Magliano is an internationally syndicated Catholic social justice and peace columnist. He is available to speak at diocesan or parish gatherings. Tony can be reached at tmag6@comcast.net.

She refused to marry the first and second. The third, however, she felt compelled to accept because of the offers the matchmakers made to her family, who knew them well.

"I was told that by marrying him, I could financially support my parents living in a remote village in West Kalimantan province and help renovate their house because the man was rich enough. Who could say no to that?" she said.

The Catholic was given three days by the matchmakers to return to her village to arrange everything needed for her marriage, including applying for a passport and obtaining a letter for new residency.

"I just did what they told me. I did not even know where the address written in my new residency letter was. Also, one day, in a hotel room, I had to sign two blank pages without knowing why," Fransiska said.

Until one day, in May 2019, she received a letter saying she was married.

"It surprised me as there had been no wedding ceremony. More surprisingly, it said that a Buddhist monk had officiated at my wedding ceremony at a local Buddhist temple and I had converted to Buddhism," she said.

Alarmed, she thought of backing out of the arrangement.

"But the matchmakers said I had to pay 300 million rupiah [about US$25,000] if I wanted to back out as I had signed an agreement. Now I know what the two blank pieces of paper were for."

Fransiska found help from an anti-human trafficking group called the National Network Against Human Trafficking (JarNas Anti-TPPO) and has lived at a shelter run by the Sisters of Our Lady of Charity of the Good Shepherd (RGS) in Jakarta since August that year.

"The matchmakers still threaten me on social media," she said.

According to Sister M. Theresia Anita Yuniastuti, the head of the shelter, Fransiska is a victim of a mail order bride racket. It's common for human traffickers to pose as marriage brokers in Indonesia and her case remains under investigation by police following a report filed by the group in November 2019.

"What she told us about how her marriage was brought about didn't seem right. The whole process was arranged faster than normal. It seems that everything was well organized," the nun said.

"The Covid-19 pandemic is the main reason why the case cannot be brought to court yet. We were told that witnesses from West Kalimantan province must be present in court, but the pandemic makes it difficult for them to travel."

The nun said she hoped Fransiska will get justice soon. "She is one of many women to fall victim to human traffickers."

More women seek protection

Indonesia's Social Ministry reported 4,906 human trafficking victims between 2016 and June 2019.

Meanwhile, data from the Children Protection Online Information System at the Women's Empowerment and Child Protection Ministry shows there were 155 human trafficking cases involving 195 women and children between January 2019 and June 2020.

Sixty-five percent, or 101 cases, involved sexual exploitation. Most of the rest involved labour abuses.

Edwin Partogi Pasaribu, deputy chairman of the Witness and Victim Protection Agency, said the number of human trafficking victims asking for protection from his agency has increased significantly, from 46 in 2015 to 120 in 2020. Most were women from West Java, Jakarta and East Nusa Tenggara provinces.

The true number of cases is almost certainly much higher, he said.

"If we talk about human trafficking, there are many problems behind this issue: poverty, low education, corruption, weak and unwilling law enforcement and so on," said Father Chrisanctus Paschalis Saturnus, head of Pangkalpinang Diocese's Commission for Justice, Peace and Pastoral Care of Migrants and Itinerant People.

For the activist priest, who is known for his work in supporting and protecting human trafficking victims particularly in Batam — a transit hub in the Riau Islands for illegal migrant workers — tackling human trafficking needs closer cooperation between government, law enforcement, NGOs, the Church and other religions.

"The Church has long shown its concern for and taken steps to deal with the issue.

The Indonesian Bishops' Conference, for example, has the Commission for Justice, Peace and Pastoral for Migrant-Itinerant People, which works with NGOs and governmental bodies in tackling injustice including human trafficking," he said.

"In Batam, my team and I joined a group called Safe Migrant.

It consists of nine anti-human trafficking bodies including RGS nuns. We have built on this cooperation over the last four years, focusing on advocacy."

At least 500 human trafficking victims, mostly women and children hired to become domestic workers in other countries including Malaysia, have been rescued by the priest and his team.

However, only 10 traffickers have been imprisoned over the last eight years and are serving jail terms of between one to nine years.

Also, in June 2019, the bishops' commission published a local version of a 36-page document, "Pastoral Orientations on Human Trafficking," originally published in January that year by the Migrants and Refugees Section of the Vatican's Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development.

The aim was to enable Catholics to understand the Church's stance on trafficking and warn others about the dangers of becoming involved.

"I have been dealing with human trafficking for years. I must admit that it is not easy to address the issue. We know the danger it poses, but we do not know the best solution to it. We need to reconstruct the way we deal with it," Father Saturnus said.

"What we have done so far only scratched the surface and never reached the bottom. What we have seen is just the tip of the iceberg."

• Katharina R. Lestari is a contributor to UCANews.com
• Republished with permission.

Many of the pandemic's socio-economic effects are aggravating human trafficking and exploitation, which the International Labour Organization (ILO) says affects over 40 million people.

Caritas and COATNET are urging governments to intensify efforts to identify victims of trafficking and put a stop to the trafficking business.

Secretary general of Caritas, Aloysius John, says "Focused attention on the pandemic must not prevent us from taking care of the people most vulnerable to trafficking and exploitation."

John says local Caritas and COATNET member organisations, along with civil society organisations all over the world, are providing much-needed safety nets for victims of trafficking and exploitation.

The work is continuing, even during the pandemic and includes accompanying the victims in their difficulties, offering material, medical, legal and psychological help.

Insufficient attention, however, is being paid to the pandemic's collateral damage, which has especially affected migrants and informal workers, who are now more exposed to trafficking and exploitation.

Securing housing is an important form of prevention against trafficking.

"The state of emergency has worsened the risk of homelessness for agricultural seasonal workers who cannot comply with hygiene and social distancing measures and who have no food because lockdown means they can't work," Catitas Spain says.

Lockdown and travel restrictions mean human trafficking victims have less chance of escaping and seeking help when they are held against their will.

Human trafficking numbers including children have increased and exploitation opportunities during the pandemic are especially featuring children. In addition, lockdown measures have caused sharp increases in cases of violence against minors.

Caritas says in India, "there has also been an increase in cases of child labour and child marriage. Due to the difficult economic conditions, families marry off their young daughters so there's one less mouth to feed."

Moreover, as a result of school closure many children are being forced onto the streets to search for food and money, increasing their risk of being exploited.

For other children, serious dangers also come from the Internet, where children using it for home schooling can be lured and exploited.

Caritas Internationalis and COATNET:

- urge governments, as a matter of priority, to provide victims of human trafficking with access to basic services, in particular shelters and support hotlines, access to justice and to support organisations that take care of them.

- ask institutions and civil society organisations to provide children with protection from the abuse and exploitation, in particular through the internet.

- ask governments, in this time of Covid-19, to put in place urgent and targeted measures to support workers in informal sectors and to intensify efforts in identifying victims of trafficking and exploitation, through greater control and measures such as labour inspections.

- and urge all people to be vigilant and to denounce cases of human trafficking and exploitation.

Soure

• Independent Catholic News
• Image: UN News

"Modern slavery is not something that happens 'over there' that we don't have to think about," Grace Forest, co-founder of Walk Free, told Vogue Australia in 2018.

"If we care about the people who make our products, we can make a difference."

Fashion has been identified as one of five key industries implicated in modern slavery.

But Fashion is not the only culprit.

A Walk Free report published last year, says one in 150 people are living in "modern slavery" in New Zealand, Australia and the Pacific Islands,

Murky Waters, A qualitative assessment of modern slavery in the Pacific region says exploitation was fuelled by widespread poverty, migration, and the abuse of cultural practice.

The report identified several forms of slavery including human trafficking, forced labour, sexual exploitation, and forced marriage in all eight countries studied: Australia, Fiji, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga, and Vanuatu.

Murky Waters draws on existing peer-reviewed and grey literature, Walk Free's 2019 assessment of action taken by governments to address slavery.

It also makes use of information gathered through semi-structured interviews with anti-slavery stakeholders in eight countries in the region.

"We have heard reports of signs of modern slavery among migrant workers in the construction industry, stemming from increasing foreign investment in Pacific Island communities," senior researcher Elise Gordon told Stuff in an interview.

"Also fishing, a major industry in the region, brings with it a poor track record as being notorious for forced labour and human trafficking for labour exploitation."

Modern slavery was likely to increase as climate change exacerbated poverty and migration, Gordon said.

Source

• rnz.co.nz
• stuff.co.nz
• respect.international
• minderoo.org
• vogue.com.au
• Image: rnz.co.nz

Insufficient attention "was paid on the collateral damage of the ongoing pandemic, especially on migrants and informal workers, who are now more exposed to trafficking and exploitation," Caritas Internationalis says.

Caritas voiced its concerns to highlight the plight of human trafficking victims in advance of the commemoration of the World Day Against Trafficking in Persons, on 30 July.

It wants "urgent and targeted measures to support workers in informal sectors such as domestic work, agricultural and construction work, where most vulnerable workers (i.e. undocumented migrants) can be found," it said.

Caritas also noted that according to the International Labor Organization, at present there are "40 million people in our world today" who are victims of human trafficking.

Human trafficking victims are even more at risk as a result of the current health crisis "due to lack of housing and job security resulting from government measures to prevent the spread of COVID-19."

"Lack of freedom of movement caused by lockdown and travel restrictions means that human trafficking victims in many countries have less chance of escaping and finding help when they are held in situations against their will,".

"Among them, there are many victims of trafficking for sexual exploitation. Domestic workers face increased risks economically, and also physically and psychologically, as they are even more cut off from society during the pandemic," it said.

Restrictive measures have made it difficult to identify cases of trafficking and an increase in violence against children, particularly online exploitation in homes "with little parental supervision," Caritas says.

"At one point during lockdown in India, for example, 92,000 cases of child abuse were reported to authorities over the course of just 11 days.

"Children from economically vulnerable families may be also forced on the streets to beg, facing high risk of exploitation," Caritas says.

The secretary general of Caritas, Aloysius John, says victims of human trafficking and exploitation "need immediate attention."

He is calling on governments "to provide them with access to justice and to basic services, in particular shelters and hotlines, and also to put in place urgent and targeted measures to support workers in informal sectors."

"We also call institutions and civil society organizations to protect children from abuse and exploitation, also through internet and new media, and we ask all people to be vigilant and to denounce cases of human trafficking and exploitation," he says.

Source

• Catholic News Service
• Image: Skoll Foundatiion

The 207,000-signature petition says: "We already have evidence, and it is just the tip of the iceberg. It's time to shut down [this] super-predator site ... and hold the executives behind it accountable."

The organisers of the petition plan to send it to the US Department of Justice, the FBI, US President Donald Trump, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, and several US Congressmen.

Dr Melissa Farley, executive director of Prostitution Research & Education, said the petition is proposing a fair and moderate position.

She said the website's actions are already illegal.

In her view, the "organisation [that prepared the petition] are taking a very reasonable stance."

"They're only talking about children and they're only talking about children that are being advertised for sale. Any prostitution of a child according to U.S. federal law is trafficking," she said.

"This is pictures of the trafficking of kids, in other words, pictures of the prostitution of children."

The initiative to set up a petition came about following feedback from people who were angry at the news regarding the website's negligence regarding illegal material on its site.

It is leading to illegal people trafficking, Laila Mickelwait, Exodus Cry's Director of Abolition and the author of the petition, said.

"Everybody's in agreement that children should not be trafficked and raped.

"Women should not be trafficked and raped for profit, for the sexual pleasure of billions of people who visit that website."

"There's just no arguing with that."

Mickelwait said that because of the massive amount of content on the website, it is possible that there are more instances of sexual exploitation and child pornography than she knows of.

"If we know that there's 10, 12, 15, 20[cases], [then] there's probably hundreds, thousands [of cases of sexual exploitation]... We have no idea how huge this could be based on the amount of content they have on their site."

Source

• Catholic News Agency
• Image: ScoopWhoop

"I want to reiterate that the journey of consecrated life, both female and male, is the path of ecclesial insertion," Francis said. He discussed how religious must work within the bounds of officialdom. "Outside the Church and in parallel with the local church, things do not work."

The pope also praised the network of religious sisters that combats human trafficking for being "on the front line."

Speakers from the Talitha Kum organization headlined a United Nations panel on the eve of the U.N. annual observance of the World Day Against Trafficking in Persons.

"Human trafficking is one of the darkest and most revolting realities in the world today, ensnaring 41 million men and women, boys and girls," said Father David Charters, second secretary of the Vatican's permanent observer mission to the United Nations.

"It is, as Pope Francis has repeatedly stressed, ‘an open wound on the body of contemporary society,' a ‘crime against humanity' and an ‘atrocious scourge that is present throughout the world on a broad scale,'" he said.

Father Charters said the international response to the global phenomenon includes three specific targets in the U.N. 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

They commit the organization's members to fight trafficking and sexual exploitation, take immediate action to eradicate forced labor, end modern slavery and human trafficking, and end all forms of violence against and torture of children.

Comboni Sister Gabriella Bottani is the international coordinator of the Rome-based Talitha Kum.

She said it is a network of networks established by the International Union of Superiors General to coordinate and strengthen the anti-trafficking work being done by consecrated women in 77 countries on five continents.

"Talitha Kum" were the words Jesus addressed to a young apparently lifeless girl in the Gospel of Mark.

The Aramaic phrase is translated, "Young girl, I say to you, ‘Arise.'"

The network seeks to free people, raise them up and restore their dignity.

Sister Bottani said Talitha Kum uses a victim-centered approach to identify people in need and support them with shelter, social reintegration and education.

"We do not have a model to export. Each of the organizations in the network promotes initiatives against trafficking in its particular local context," she said.

Some of the sisters dedicate their entire ministry to trafficked and enslaved people, while others provide housing and emergency intervention as needed. Continue reading

• Image: Crux

"What we should do, more and more, is to be aware and to try to understand what trafficking is in our reality, in our communities," the Italian nun told CNA.

"I think that since Pope Francis started to speak against trafficking there is an increasing commitment in the Church at all levels," she said.

At the highest levels of the Church, the Migrants and Refugees Section of the Vatican's Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development is working on anti-trafficking issues and coordinating different agencies, including the anti-trafficking network Talitha Kum.

Bottani, a Comboni Missionary Sister, was presented with certificate for her achievements from US Secretary of State Michael Pompeo and Presidential advisor Ivanka Trump.

She has been official coordinator of Talitha Kum since 2015.

The network is led by religious sisters, with more than 2,000 of them being a part of the network. Talitha Kum has representatives in 77 countries and 43 national networks.

Members of the network have served 10,000 survivors by accompanying them to shelters and other residential communities, engaging in international collaboration, and aiding survivors' return home.

Bottani first worked in anti-trafficking efforts in Brazil, but she now lives in Italy.

At the U.S. State Department in Washington, D.C. June 20, Bottani was one of many leaders recognized individually as a Trafficking in Persons Report Hero by U.S. Secretary of State Michael R. Pompeo and Advisor to the President, Ivanka Trump.

The U.S. State Department report praised Bottani as "one of the most prominent and influential anti-trafficking advocates within the Catholic diaspora."

It noted her anti-trafficking work in Brazil which aided vulnerable women and children in favelas. She led a national campaign against human trafficking when Brazil hosted the World Cup in 2014.

"Throughout her career, her work has inspired generations of anti-trafficking advocates within the Catholic faith," the report said.

Bottani recounted to CNA the most recent case Talitha Kum managed at the international level: the repatriation of a young woman and mother from the Middle East to her home in Uganda.

In Uganda, this woman had lost her job and was questioning how she could support her young daughter. She received an invitation promising better work in the Middle East.

"Then when she arrived in that country, the situation was very different. There was no job for her, but there was domestic servitude," Bottani said.

"She had to be available more than 20 hours per day. She often had little food to eat."

"At a certain point she was able to escape," Bottani continued.

"She became depressed and she went on the street. When she sought help, a taxi driver raped her. Then she was completely lost." Continue reading

• Image: US State Department by Ron Przysucha / Public Domain