Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Rome (Agenzia Fides) – Modern slavery forces a 13 year-old African girl to become a prostitute for 400 dollars per hour, raking in up to 9,600 dollars per day for her exploiter. Then there are the over 23,000 young girls and boys exploited in the sexual tourism industry in Kenya, a seemingly miniscule statistic next to Thailand’s 300,000 slaves of the sexual industry.
These were among the data published in the book on the talks given at the Seminar entitled: “Building a network: the Prophetic Role of Women Religious in the Fight Against Trafficking in Persons,” organized by the United States Embassy to the Holy See and the Italian Union of Major Superiors (USMI). The event took place in Rome on October 15-20, 2007 (see Fides 22/10/2008), on the occasion of the 200th anniversary of the abolition of slavery, and its participants included 22 religious women from 25 congregations that have been working for some time in the fight against human trafficking in 26 countries.
Msgr. Pietro Parolin, Undersecretary of the Holy See’s Secretary of State for Relations with States, commented that, “until just a few years ago, it was considered almost a secret in the world family.” And in facing this phenomenon, the women religious have assumed an irreplaceable role in denouncing the activity and in assisting the victims. In Italy, for example, there are 250 sisters from 70 Congregations are working in 110 programs, often with collaboration from Caritas. Several hundreds of victims from various countries have been taken in by protected facilities run by the religious, where they receive help in rebuilding their lives.
The network of women religious works in the countries of origin of the female victims of trafficking, as well as in the countries where they are later sent. They try to create a partnership with the local Church, charitable organizations and local institutions so as to establish a flow of information to control and understand the issue and develop new strategies of intervention; promote awareness campaigns to prevent the “exodus” of young women from their families, schools, and parishes into the false “promised land”; protect the families of victims from kidnapping or revenge from exploiters; help young women who return home on their own initiative to be reintegrated into society; assist the victims that are sent back to their own countries from Europe, taking into account that 10-15% of them contract the HIV virus.
At the close of the Seminar, they announced the formation of a new International Network of Religious Against Trafficking in Persons (INRATIP), to help the victims and work against the traffickers. “We are with you, you are not alone. We will fight side by side to free you from this slavery,” read the statement from INRATIP, issued at the end of the Seminar. (LM) (Agenzia Fides 29/7/2008)
