The three most profitable “businesses” in the world are deeply damaging to human beings—sale of arms, sale of drugs and sale of human beings. From being the third most profitable, trafficking in humans has become the second most profitable industry, since (unlike drugs) a human being can be sold again and again. Think of girls promised jobs in our cities, then gang-raped and sold to brothels where they meet violence and degradation every day. Often they were led there by people they knew and trusted, including some family members.
A recent Vatican document addresses this issue.
Pope Francis has been very vocal in addressing the world community on Migrants, Refugees and Trafficking. On 17 Jan 2019 he released a document: Pastoral Orientations on Human Trafficking. To address the trafficking and enslavement of human beings, the Migrants & Refugees Section of the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development held two consultations with Church leaders, scholars and experienced practitioners and partner organizations working in the field. Participants exchanged experiences and viewpoints, addressing relevant aspects of the phenomenon. The Church’s full response was considered, in terms of strengths, weaknesses, pastoral and political opportunities as well as enhanced coordination worldwide.
This 42-page document takes a wide-ranging look at the question of Human Trafficking, providing both a reading of the phenomenon, its causes and origins, seeking to offer an adequate understanding of its dynamics and developments in order to support the necessary struggle against it.
Human trafficking, a grave crime in itself, is accompanied by other atrocities and violations of human rights, such as slave labour, using child soldiers, sexual violence and exploitation, as well as the commercialisation of human organs.
The exploitation of others has perversely but quietly been accepted as a means to achieve one’s own pleasure and gain, although the language used may reference the laws of the market: relentless competition to reduce by any means the costs for any good and service. Human trafficking deprives many people of their identity and dignity, and commodifies them to the advantage of a few.
The Sad Truth
Each year thousands of innocent men, women and children are victims of exploitative labour and sexual abuse, and of organ trafficking, and it seems that we have become so accustomed to this, as to consider it a normal thing. This is deplorable; it is cruel; it is criminal! I wish to remind everyone of the duty to combat this abhorrent plague, a form of modern slavery. (Pope Francis, Angelus, 30 July 2017)
This happens when the deity of money rather than the human being is at the centre of an economic system. Yes, at the centre of every social or economic system must be the person, image of God, created to ‘have dominion over’ the universe. The inversion of values happens when the person is displaced and money becomes the deity.
Those Who Abuse the Victims
In public discourse, much attention is paid to traffickers who provide the supply side of human trafficking, although few are arrested and far fewer still convicted. Little is said about the consumers: the factor of demand, which traffickers continue to meet. Considering the different areas in which the victims of trafficking work or operate (agriculture, domestic work, prostitution and so on), the consumers constitute a huge mass who seem largely unaware of the exploitation of persons who are trafficked, yet enjoy the benefits and services they provide. If men, women and children are trafficked, this is ultimately because there is great demand that makes their exploitation profitable.
People who generate the demand share real responsibility for the destructive impact of their behaviour on other human persons, and for the moral values violated in the process.
What Many Do Not Know
As the Pope says, “Certainly there is a lot of ignorance on the topic of trafficking. But sometimes there also seems to be little will to understand the scope of the issue. Why? Because it touches close to our conscience; because it is thorny; because it is shameful. Then there are those who, even knowing this, do not want to speak because they are at the end of the ‘supply chain’, as a user of the ‘services’ that are offered on the street or on the Internet.”
All over the world the Church is committed to denouncing the commodification and exploitation of people, resulting from the ‘throw away culture’ which the Holy Father repeatedly condemns and links to the god of money.
Modern finance, commerce, transportation and communications provide opportunities for the unscrupulous to enter into the system of entrapping and exploiting human persons. In industries such as agriculture, fishing, construction and mining, trafficking has expanded through collaboration among numerous and various perpetrators, making the phenomenon more complex and complicating the assessment of its origins and impact. The crime is easily hidden within current business models. Outrage, while utterly appropriate, tends to obscure the cold logic of human trafficking as extremely profitable, implanted within even well-regarded businesses. When well-meaning efforts to block it are undertaken, unscrupulous entrepreneurs simply shift their tactics to avoid the counter-measures.
There is an urgent need for ethical assessment of current business models, aimed at revealing the mechanisms of entrapment and exploitation adopted by companies. The Church encourages both sides of the commercial relationship – entrepreneurs who provide and end-users who consume – to engage in this ethical reflection and then to make the changes that are called for.
We Need to Face the Facts
When Human Trafficking occurs across a country’s borders, the communities of origin, transit and destination should be properly informed. Relevant information includes prevention, identification and prosecution; the risks, modalities and consequences of trafficking; and applicable international and national laws. Specific programmes of education and self-education, aimed at reinforcing the capacities for prevention, protection, prosecution and partnership, should be offered at the community level.
If the human family wishes to stamp out this evil, society itself will have to change. In order to bring human trafficking to an end, all people will need to simplify their needs, control their habits, and rein in their appetites. “Simplicity, moderation and discipline, as well as a spirit of sacrifice, must become a part of everyday life, lest all suffer the negative consequences of the careless habits of a few,” (Pope John Paul II) and this “implies avoiding the dynamic of dominion and the mere accumulation of pleasures.” (Pope Francis)
“I would like to remind everyone, especially governments engaged in boosting the world’s economic and social assets, that the primary capital to be safeguarded and valued is man, the human person in his or her integrity: Man is the source, the focus and the aim of all economic and social life.” (Pope Francis, Angelus, 30 July 2017).
The Three P’s of the Palermo Protocol
The Palermo Protocol is the Protocol to prevent, suppress and punish trafficking in persons, especially women and children, supplementing the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime is the internationally accepted definition of human trafficking.
The implementation of the Palermo Protocol has been commonly presented in the form of three Ps: prevention, protection and prosecution. Several national and international institutions have developed their policies and programmes along these lines. Moreover, there is a fourth ‘P,’ namely partnership, which is no less important, but may well remain weak. Lack of cooperation – or even competition – among various State actors often renders well-intentioned policies and programmes ineffective. This is true at the international, national and local levels. Similar difficulties diminish the effectiveness of the actions undertaken by civil society organizations.
When trafficking occurs across a country’s borders, the communities of origin, transit and destination should be properly informed. Relevant information includes prevention, identification and prosecution; the risks, modalities and consequences of trafficking; and applicable international and national laws. Specific programmes of education and self-education aimed at reinforcing the capacities for prevention, protection, prosecution and partnership should be offered at the community level. Such programmes should also envisage the appropriate involvement of individuals who have been trafficked.
In addition, youth should be educated to embrace a responsible sexual life within the context of faithful and life-long marriage, to show an ethical respect for other persons, to use the internet with prudence and discrimination, and to inform themselves about the origins and production of the goods they purchase.
A book
The Migrants and Refugees Section also released a separate publication, Lights on the Ways of Hope, which compiles Pope Francis’ teachings on migrants, refugees and human trafficking.
“Its purpose is similar to that of the ‘Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church,’ to serve one and all as an instrument for the moral and pastoral discernment of the complex events” concerning the movements of people today, and as “a guide to inspire” people to look to the future with hope.
The nearly 500-page volume collects more than 300 complete or excerpted speeches, messages and reflections by the pope on the three themes. The Vatican will host a conference focused on the implementation of these guidelines in early April.
(Compiled from the Vatican document, Pastoral Orientations on human trafficking)
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