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

This was not a one-time incident for the willful teenager, who developed a habit of disappearing after her family moved from Austin, Tex., to California in 2010.

Whenever Riana clashed with her mother over her restrictive house rules or curfew, she would take off for a few hours to hide out with her new friends.

It was not unusual, then, when Riana decided to run away one night after getting into another argument with her mother for missing curfew.

This time, however, she reached out for help from the wrong person—an older man (we will call him J.) who had given her his phone number earlier that day.

Though Riana was suspicious of J.'s interest in her, she felt she had run out of options: "It was cold and nighttime. I had nowhere else to go, so I ended up calling the number."

J. offered to put Riana up in a hotel room for the night. On the way, he gave her a drug that made her feel lightheaded and woozy.

Riana remembers the room being occupied by another teenage girl, who started taking pictures of her.

"It kind of felt like a dream. It was my first time doing drugs, so I was kind of out of it. I didn't know what was going on," Riana told me over the phone.

The next morning she woke up, disoriented, to J. knocking on her hotel room door.

At first, he downplayed what had happened the previous night, refusing to answer any of Riana's or the other girl's questions about their current situation or their hazy memories of their encounters with J. It was not until a week and a half later that his intentions with the photographs were made clear: J. was a sex trafficker, and Riana was his next victim.

Human trafficking remains a vast yet largely hidden criminal industry that generated an estimated $32 billion annually in 2012; and sex trafficking, in particular, exploits roughly four million people around the world.

Hearing people like Riana recount her own experiences as a sex-trafficking survivor in her sometimes shaky yet persistent voice can help many put a face to these numbers and ask hard questions:

What will it take to end human trafficking?

And how should people of faith respond to this injustice?

Inside a Hidden Crime

Human trafficking is a unique, 21st-century social issue, in part because labour trafficking, including commercial sex trafficking, was not internationally recognized as a distinct crime until Nov. 15, 2000, when the Palermo Protocol was drafted at the United Nations Convention Against Transnational Organized Crime.

Before that, the legal definition of human trafficking was murky at best, with virtually no uniform consequences for those who exploited individuals for labour or sex acts.

The Palermo Protocol sought to change that by constructing the first global, legally binding agreement, one that includes a universal definition of trafficking in persons and encourages cooperation among the signatory polities to investigate and prosecute trafficking cases. Continue reading

In a country where Catholics represent less than 1% of the population, Francis called on these modern missionaries in Thailand to give Christianity a fresh face.

"As I prepared for this meeting, I read, with some pain, that for many people Christianity is a foreign faith, a religion for foreigners. This should spur us to find ways to talk about the faith 'in dialect,' like a mother who sings lullabies to her child," the pope said.

"With that same intimacy, let us give faith a Thai face and flesh, which involves much more than making translations.

"It is about letting the Gospel be stripped of fine but foreign garb; to let it 'sing' with the native music of this land and inspire the hearts of our brothers and sisters with the same beauty that set our own hearts on fire."

"The Lord did not call us and send us forth into the world to impose obligations on people, or lay heavier burdens than those they already have, which are many, but rather to share joy, a beautiful, new and surprising horizon."

The pope recalled Pope Benedict XVI saying that the Church does not grow by proselytizing but by attraction.

"This means we are not afraid to look for new symbols and images, for that particular music which can help awaken in the Thai people the amazement that the Lord wants to give us. Let us not be afraid to continue inculturating the Gospel.

"We need to seek new ways of transmitting the word, ways that are capable of mobilizing and awakening a desire to know the Lord. Who is that man? Who are these people who follow a man who was crucified?"

He made the comments while speaking during a meeting with priests, religious, seminarians and catechists at St. Peter's Parish of Wat Roman village in Tha Kham, Bangkok, on Nov. 22.

In the course of his visit, Francis focused some of his attention on the humiliation of women and children who are forced into prostitution.

During an open-air Mass with 60,000 people at Bangkok's national sports stadium, Francis urged Thais to not ignore the women and children trafficked for sex or migrants enslaved as fishermen and beggars.

"All of them are part of our family," he told an estimated 60,000 people in the stadium for the evening service. "They are our mothers, our brothers and sisters."

This was the second time he focussed on the plight of women and children forced into the sex trade.

Earlier, during a meeting with Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha, he praised the Thai government's efforts to fight human trafficking.

Prayuth didn't make any reference to the problem in his remarks to Francis, though he stressed that Thailand had made great strides in promoting human rights.

"We have sought to strengthen the family institution and ensure equal opportunities for all groups in society, especially women and children," he told Francis after a brief private meeting.

Thailand is concered a key trafficking destination as well as a source of sex workers and forced labour.

The four-day visit to Thailand was packed and included meeting the Prime Minister, Government authorities, the Buddhist supreme patriarch of Thailand, medical professionals, people with disabilities, Kin Maha Vajiralongkorn, priests, religious and seminaries, the bishops of Thailand, Jesuits in Thailand, Christian leaders of other religions, Mass at the National stadium and another with young people at the Cathedral.

Sources

• la-Croix
• CNA
• APNews

Sister Gabriella Bottani was honored on Thursday, during a ceremony introducing the 2019 Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Report, presented by U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

Bottani was one of nine individuals who were named "Heroes" in recognition of their tireless efforts to fight modern-day slavery, which affects an estimated 25 million people and has been labeled by Pope Francis as a "crime against humanity." The nun was tasked with speaking for the group of honorees.

"This is a great responsibility for all of us who are being recognized today," Bottani said. "I'm here today because of Talitha Kum, a global network of women of faith challenged by the violence and serious violation of Human Rights caused by human trafficking and any kind of exploitation around the world." Continue reading

A Consolata sister, Bonetti has been featured in documentaries and won both the International Women of Courage Prize from the U.S. State Department and the European Citizens' Prize from the E.U.

She's met presidents and prime ministers, spoken to high-level conferences all around the world, and become the face of the anti-trafficking push.

For all that, Bonetti has never lost contact with the concrete human beings who are at the core of her campaign.

Every Saturday, she and a group of sisters from various religious orders visit the immigrant welcome center of Ponte Galeria on the peripheries of Rome, where many young women await work visas and passports and often become prey to human traffickers.

"Between 2015 and 2016 nearly 15,000 Nigerian women have arrived in Italy," Bonetti said in an interview with Crux. "Where are they?" she asked.

Answering her own question, she said, "They are on our streets."

According to government data, between 50 and 70 thousand women in Italy are victims of human trafficking and forced to prostitute themselves for as little as the equivalent of $12.

Bonetti has been there since the very beginning, when after her 24 years as a missionary in Kenya she was called back to the small northern Italian town of Turin in 1993, which was then experiencing the onset of the migrant crisis.

"When I returned to Italy, I saw the women that I had met in Africa, once filled with life, joy and desire to live and think about the future, living on the streets," Bonetti said.

"I too, in the beginning, thought they were there because they wanted to be there, because they wanted to earn money.

"That wasn't true! They were there because someone put them there.

"Because someone made a profit from putting them there. And someone else had made a profit from exploiting them, using them and then throwing them back on the street." Continue reading

Sources

• Crux article by Claire Giangravè, a reporter and editorial assistant at Crux.
• Image: Consolata Missionary Sisters

It's vacation season for much of the world, with travelers flocking to airports to jet off for some hard-earned R&R.

But it's not just holidaymakers who fly on planes. Airports are also hubs for human trafficking — where adults or children are transported into forced labor or commercial sexual exploitation.

Almost every country in the world is affected by trafficking, and traffickers often use air travel to move their victims. Sometimes, victims are flown into another country on the promise of a legitimate job, other times traffickers move their victims within a country, to keep them powerless or to avoid detection.

But you can help. By being aware of the telltale signs that someone is being trafficked, you may be able to keep them from a life of modern slavery.

We asked four organizations involved in anti-trafficking initiatives to share some of the signs that could indicate that a passenger is being trafficked through an airport.

It's important to remember that even if you spot a number of these signs, it doesn't necessarily mean someone is being trafficked. But if you do suspect someone is being trafficked, do not confront suspected traffickers or attempt to rescue suspected victims — instead, call emergency services or alert the airport authorities.

1 — A traveler is not dressed appropriately for their route of travel.
You might notice right away that a traveler has few or no personal items. Victims may be less well dressed than their companions. They may be wearing clothes that are the wrong size, or are not appropriate for the weather on their route of travel.

2 — They have a tattoo with a bar code, the word "Daddy."
Many people have tattoos, so a tattoo in itself is obviously not an indicator, but traffickers or pimps feel they own their victims and a barcode tattoo, or a tattoo with "Daddy" or even a man's name could be a red flag that the person is a victim. Continue reading

Sources

• CNN
• Image: Verde Independent

She spoke about her charitable work in many of the most dangerous areas of the world and in particular about the redeeming of slaves in Sudan.

What struck me at the time was her comment that not only is slavery alive and well in the twenty-first century, but also that there are more human beings in slavery today than at any time in history.

That talk came back to me when I read this report from the Guardian. According to a new report, not only is slavery still with us, but the practice is thriving.

Modern-day slavers can make 25 to 30 times the return on their investment than their counterparts in the 18th and 19th century.

A slavery economist (isn't it depressing that there even is such a thing!?) at the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at the Havard Kennedy School, Siddharth Kara, has calculated that the average profit on each slave in the world is just shy of USD 4,000 per year.

And that the comparable figure is nine-times that amount if the victim is in the sex trafficking trade.

Indeed, according to Kara, while 50% of the total profits of modern day slavery are made up by sex trafficking, only 5% of modern slaves are sex trafficking victims.

What is interesting (and terribly sad) is that slavery is lucrative not because there is a paucity of slaves in the world today. Instead, there are twice as many people trapped in some form of slavery today than were traded throughout the entire 350 year history of the transatlantic slave trade!

While roughly 13 million people were captured and sold in the transatlantic trade between the late 15th and 19th centuries, today the UN's International Labour Organisation believe that at least 21 million are in some form of modern slavery. Continue reading

• Marcus Roberts has just started a new job teaching contract law at Auckland University.

This trauma fuelled her passion for human rights work.

Ortiz now serves as the editor of Education for Justice, a project of the Center of Concern.

She also founded the international Torture Abolition and Survivors Support Coalition (TASSC International) and served as its director for 10 years.

Ortiz has received many honors for her human rights work, including three honorary doctorates, the Pax Christi USA Teacher of Peace Award, and the Rothko Chapel Oscar Romero Award.

Ortiz shared with Global Sisters Report the story of her journey from survivor to visionary advocate and educator and talked about the spirituality that supports her in her work.

Like many sisters, Ortiz works to raise awareness to end human trafficking. She helped produce the short video "I Am Miriam," which tells the story of a trafficking survivor.

GSR: What are the spiritual practices that nourish you in the 'long-haul' work of social justice ministry?

Ortiz: Years back, I was asked to give a presentation on the relationship between my own spirituality and justice.

This was one of the most agonizing reflections that I had ever been asked to give.

How could a person who was present at the eclipse of God and felt divorced from humanity claim to have a spiritual life?

My experience of torture left me feeling lifeless and with a lack of purpose.

I came to recognize that my spirituality at that given moment was surviving — stitching back together my shredded trust in God, my hope in humanity, and my dignity as a woman.

Our world is faced with so many problems [including] poverty, corruption, extreme forms of violence [and] ecological peril. Being an advocate for change is not easy and can take a toll on a person's life.

There were times I was passionate — some might say 'obsessed' — in my attempt to get people to recognize what was happening in our world with torture.

My life goal was to create a world free of torture, to raise awareness of its impacts of individuals, families, societies and perpetrators. Continue reading

Source and Image:

• Global Sisters' Report, from a question and answer article by Rhonda Miska, a former Jesuit Volunteer (Nicaragua, 2002-2004) and a graduate of the Boston College School of Theology and Ministry.

Now, a new study in the American Journal of Public Health reveals that even rich, developed countries such as the United Kingdom suffer from staggering rates of human trafficking—and that the trauma inflicted by human traffickers often causes lasting psychological damage to victims.

"Human trafficking has devastating and long-lasting effects on mental health," said coauthor Siân Oram of King's College in London, in a press statement.

"There is an urgent need for evidence on the effectiveness of psychological therapies and treatments to support this highly vulnerable population."

Human trafficking is a deceptively tame word for what amounts to modern slavery—a $150 billion a year criminal industry that forces children into prostitution and immigrants into farm labor with threats of violence, debt bondage and other manipulative tactics.

Of the 21 million victims of human trafficking around the world roughly 68 percent are trapped in forced labor and 26 percent are children. There are an estimated hundreds of thousands of human trafficking victims in the United States.

Plenty of ink has been spilled on the plight of the victims of human trafficking, and how governments can do more to rescue those in bondage and protect at-risk children. But we still know surprisingly little about how to rehabilitate modern-day trafficking victims, especially when it comes to providing psychological treatments.

In an effort to learn more about the psyche of the human trafficking victim, researchers coordinated with post-trafficking support services and hospitals across the UK and managed to interview 150 patients.

They found that nearly 80 percent of women and 40 percent of men interviewed reported high levels of depression, anxiety and PTSD.

They also found that women were most often trafficked for sexual exploitation and domestic servitude (and that more than half of those trafficked for domestic servitude were raped) while men were almost exclusively trafficked for labor exploitation, most often in the agriculture, construction and car washing industries. Continue reading

Sources

• Article by Joshua A. Krisch, a science jounalist from New York, in Vocativ.
• Image: Mimi's Mission

Like the hundreds of thousands of his fellow Cambodians who migrate in search of work each year, he had a simple but powerful motivation: "I heard there were better jobs in Thailand and I knew bahts were worth more than riels, so I decided to go."

It was a decision that nearly cost him his life. After chatting with others in his village who had made the journey before him, San waited at the border for two days. When night fell on the second day, he crossed the border into Thailand and then waited another day on the other side. Eventually, a group of men appeared in a large pick-up.

"They used their mobile phones as torches to see which of us looked strong, then they laid us next to each other and on top of each other in the back of the pick-up," says San.

"There were three layers of us, with the strongest at the bottom. There were about 20 of us in the back and they put a plastic sheet over us and told us not to make any noise."

Eight suffocating hours later, the pick-up stopped in a forest and San and five other Cambodians were herded into a cage and "locked in so that the police wouldn't find us". Behind bars in an unknown forest in a strange land, the negotiations began. San and the others were offered $200 (£132) a month - far more than they would make at home - to work on construction sites in Bangkok.

They accepted, only to discover that they would have to pay their captors-cum-employers $80 for transporting them to the Thai capital, $80 for the correct documents, and $30 a month for basics such as mosquito nets. Continue reading

Sources

• The Guardian. The article is by Sam Jones, a Guardian reporter currently on a secondment on Global development.
• Image: YouTube

Of course, she didn't think of him as a pimp; he was her boyfriend, her savior, the man who doted on her and gave her the things her parents couldn't or wouldn't provide.

"You know how you're a little girl and you dream of Prince Charming? Well, he was Prince Charming," Crystal said from her home in Watertown, South Dakota. She asked that her real name not be used.

Crystal met this man through her dad's substance abuse program. He was 10 years her senior.

When they started dating, he got Crystal hooked on cocaine and the first time he sold her, it was to make good on a cocaine deal.

"He was out of coke and he asked me if I'd dance for his drug dealer," she said. Crystal did it, and before long, she was also prostituting on the streets, dancing in clubs and working as an escort for politicians and professional athletes in order to feed the couple's habit.

Crystal hated what she was doing, but she said if she told her pimp no, he would beat her. Sometimes he would beat her even when she did what he asked.

Crystal lived this way for four years — traveling across California, her home state, and Nevada — until her pimp went to prison on drug charges. She was 17.

Looking back, Crystal, now a 44-year-old mother of two, is convinced her pimp had everything planned when he first approached her, the vulnerable teenager from a troubled home.

"He offered me lemonade and brownies. He wanted to go out and date me, told me how pretty I was," she said dryly. "He suckered me into it, I guess."

Crystal's story is depressingly common. The United Nations defines human trafficking as the recruitment, transfer, harboring or receipt for persons for an improper purpose — usually forced labor or sexual exploitation — and it happens all the time. Continue reading

Sources

• Global Sisters Report, from an article by Dawn Cherie Araujo, a Global Sisters Report staff writer, based in Kansas City, Missouri.
• Image: Prezi

The lines between migration and human trafficking all too easily converge. While migration implies a level of individual choice, migrants are sometimes detained and even tortured by the people they pay to lead them across borders.

Following the cash across borders - through a network of kingpins, spotters, drivers and enforcers - is central to understanding how this opaque and complex business works.

Everyone agrees there is not enough data. No one knows how many migrants are smuggled.

However, enough is known about the money paid - by Eritreans, Syrians, Rohingya, and Afghans, among others - to demonstrate it is a multimillion-dollar business.

As Europe debates measures ranging from military attacks to destroying smugglers' boats to increasing asylum places, what more can be done to prosecute those profiting at the crossroads of dreams and despair?

How much do migrants pay?
The cost varies depending on the distance, destination, level of difficulty, method of transport (air travel is dearer and requires fake documents) and whether the migrant has personal links to the smugglers, or decides to work for them.

The UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) says journeys in Asia can cost from a few hundred dollars up to $10,000 (£6,422) or more.

For Mexicans wanting to enter the US, fees can run to $3,500, while Africans trying to cross the Mediterranean can pay up to $1,000, and Syrians up to $2,500.

Abu Hamada, 62, a Syrian-Palestinian refugee, reckons he has earned about £1.5m ($2.3m) over six months by smuggling people across the Mediterranean from Egypt.

A place on a boat from Turkey to Greece costs between €1,000 and €1,200(£700 and £840), say migrants. Afghans pay between €10,000 and €11,000 to get to Hungary, which includes help from smugglers. Continue reading

Sources

• Clár Ní Chonghaile is a freelance reporter based in London. She has worked as a journalist in Paris, Madrid, London, Abidjan, Dakar and, most recently, Nairobi. The article above is from The Guardian.
• Image: bitlanders

So profitable is the trade in slaves that some local fishermen in Thailand have been converting their boats to carry Rohingya migrants instead of fish.

A Guardian investigation into Thailand's export-orientated seafood business and the vast transnational trafficking syndicates that had, until recently, been holding thousands of Rohingya migrants captive in jungle camps, has exposed strong and lucrative links between the two.

Testimony from survivors, brokers and human rights groups indicate that hundreds of Rohingya men were sold from the network of trafficking camps recently discovered in southern Thailand.

According to those sold from the camps on to the boats, this was frequently done with the knowledge and complicity of some Thai state officials.

In some cases, Rohingya migrants held in immigration detention centres in Thailand were taken by staff to brokers and then sold on to Thai fishing boats.

Other Rohingya migrants say Thai officials collected them from human traffickers when they arrived on the country's shores and transported them to jungle camps where they were held to ransom or sold to fishing boats as slave labour.

Thailand's seafood industry is worth an estimated $7.3bn a year. The vast majority of its produce is exported.

Last year, another Guardian investigation tracked the supply chain of prawns produced with slave labour to British and American supermarket chains.

Though the Guardian has not irrefutably linked individual Thai ships using Rohingya slaves to specific seafood supermarket produce, the likelihood is that some seafood produced using this labour will have ended up on western shelves.

The scale of the profitable and sophisticated human trafficking networks making money from the desperation of hundreds of thousands of stateless Rohingya "boat people" has been emerging over the past weeks. Continue reading

Sources

• Emanuel Stoakes is a freelance journalist and researcher in the field of human rights and conflict; Chris Kelly is a documentary filmmaker and photographer; Annie Kelly writes on global development, human rights and social affairs for the Guardian and Observer. This article is from The Guardian
• Image: BBC News
• See also: Thai fishing industry turns to trafficking video, and 'Murder at Sea: Captured on Video but Murderers Go Free' in The New York Times

The call comes from Sr Sharmi D'Souza, a member of the Sisters of Mary Immaculate, who says the nuns will be more effective supported by their pastors.

As well as the lack of priests, the nuns are also disappointed that some Indian police refuse to go with them because they've been bribed by traffickers.

Confirming the nuns never go alone, Sr Shami said when local police won't help, the resourceful nuns go further up the police chain of command to get help.

"In one night, we saved 37 girls," she said, adding 10 were minors.

Sr Sharmi told CNS that they've snatched girls as young as 12 from the clutches of their captors.

After rescuing the girls and young women, the sisters take them to safety and offer them support and assistance.

The nun, who with a number of other religious women attended the event at which Pope Francis urged everyone to fight modern forms of slavery, is pleased that in four years the nuns have also helped put 30 traffickers in jail.

The ongoing call to get more priests and men religious active in the fight against trafficking was reiterated by the only priest in the audience, not part of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace.

"The presence of such dedicated women religious is extraordinary.

"The absence of priests and male religious (at the news conference) is even more noticeable," said Fr Jeffrey Bayhi, pastor of St John the Baptist and Our Lady of the Assumption churches in Zachary, Louisiana.

While women religious are on the streets helping victims, priests need to take advantage of "the pulpit" to speak out against human exploitation, he said.

"Life is seen only as something for profit, pleasure or possession. Unless we address that societal ill that is worldwide", he said, adding, the "snakes" will never be wiped out "as long as there is a market for venom."

February 8 is the feast of St Josephine Bakhita and marks the International Day of Prayer and Awareness against Human Trafficking.

Sources

• CNS
• Vatican Radio
• Image: Persblog.be

A raid is about to take place on a brothel whose inhabitants, the police believe, include women who have been trafficked into Britain from eastern Europe.

The nun is an integral part of the police operation.

It could be a storyline from a film, but there isn't a camera in sight.

This is real life, part of the UK's imaginative and innovative approach that has made it a frontrunner in the battle against human trafficking; and the scene explains why London will this week host the second meeting of the Santa Marta international consortium to stop the trade.

Home secretary Theresa May, Metropolitan police commissioner Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe and Cardinal Vincent Nichols will join police chiefs, victims' organisations, ambassadors and church leaders from 27 countries for the conference, taking place at Lancaster House on Friday and Saturday.

It is likely to be followed by announcements next weekend of projects aimed both at more effective policing and education campaigns to raise public awareness of trafficking.

On Saturday the Home Office said therecould be as many as 13,000 slavery victims in the UK.

"It's a terrible crime that wrecks people's lives, and it goes on in the midst of ordinary life - on ordinary streets in cities and towns across Britain - yet many people know nothing about it," said Kevin Hyland, newly appointed as the country's anti-slavery commissioner, who will play a leading role at the conference.

"We need to tell people what they need to look out for, the signs that someone might be being coerced into living a life they don't want to lead, so that they can help in the fight against trafficking." Continue reading

Article and Image:

• The Guardian
• See also: articles in The Sydney Morning Herald and Catholic Herald