ACAN's Compendium of Modern Slavery Statements highlights the work of over 40 Catholic entities including dioceses, health, education and welfare bodies.

Signatory organisations, such as the Sydney Archdiocese's Catholic schools, identify areas of risk and the measures they will take to eradicate supplies tainted by slavery.

The International Labor Organization estimates that more than 40 million people globally live in modern-day slavery. Children are thought to make up about a quarter of those being victimised.

Australia is far from immune, with the United Nations estimating there are approximately 15,000 victims in Australia.

The ACAN document commits Australia's largest Catholic entities to eradicate links to slavery in their operations. This is significant as the Catholic Church is Australia's second-largest employer, ranking only behind the government.

The compendium is a work in progress, said attorney John McCarthy, chair of the Archdiocese of Sydney's Anti-Slavery Taskforce and a driving force in its compilation.

While addressing areas of potential cooperation with slavery by the archdiocese, the task force also proposed a national network of Catholic agencies and institutions, which became ACAN.

ACAN participants concur that eradicating slavery in all its forms is an expression of fundamental Catholic social teaching.

A key achievement of the compendium, McCarthy said, has been the extensive identification of areas of risk for organisations to consider.

"We don't rely on anecdotal evidence anymore," he said. "We now know where our major risks are and what to do about them."

The Australian effort is gaining international attention.

"As Catholic people and organisations around the world are hearing about what we've managed to achieve in Australia, they're starting to see the possibilities for the introduction of anti-slavery measures in Church entities in their own countries," McCarthy said.

"That makes all the work our members have put in so far worthwhile. We're showing that the Catholic Church is committed with Pope Francis to eradicating modern slavery in our generation."

Sources

Catholic News

Catholic Weekly

ACAN

Making good his statement, Fisher has publicly committed the Archdiocese of Sydney to a pilot programme aimed at ridding the archdiocese's services, schools and parishes of slavery-tainted goods and services.

The pilot program Fisher is referring to is the fruit of work the Archdiocese of Sydney began last year.

It started with a fact-finding Antislavery Task Force that assessed the archdiocese's reliance on dubious suppliers.

The task force eventually established a response that included anti-slavery diocesan-wide procurement guidelines, anti-slavery education for officials charged with procurement and parish families, and welfare services for victims of trafficking or slavery.

John McCarthy QC, a former Australian ambassador to the Holy See, says victims of modern slavery are everywhere and in every industrial sector.

Because of the extent of the supply chains that eventually reach Catholic institutions, the possible exposure of the church to modern slavery is enormous.

McCarthy says the Catholic Church in Australia is both the largest employer and the largest procurer of goods and services in the country outside the public sector.

He says as one-in-five Australian children are educated in Catholic schools and one-in-10 hospital patients and elderly care residents receive care in Catholic health facilities, ridding the church's supply lines of slavery should have a meaningful impact in Australia.

Given this, he wonders what the impact would be like if the global Catholic Church committed itself to purging slave-produced goods from its supply chains.

Source

• America Magazine
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