The Vatican is ramping up its effort to combat worldwide human trafficking. Pope Francis hosted a weekend conference to discuss the severity of the problem and decide the Church’s plan of action.
The Vatican has proposed to tackle all forms of human trafficking: forced labour, sex, and organ harvesting.
A draft of the conference’s 50 proposals includes a recommendation that the Holy See ratify the Palermo Protocol, the international human trafficking legal instrument.
The outcomes of the conference, organized by the Pontifical Academy of Sciences and Social Sciences and the World Federation of Catholic Medical Associations, will also provide guidance for Catholic anti-human trafficking efforts in Canada.
In 2000, the Vatican announced that human trafficking must be a concern for all religious communities and every Catholic should work on this issue, but that call has since lost steam, said Louise Dionne, coordinator of the Comité d’action contre la traite humaine interne et internationale (CATHII) in Montréal.
“We are really pleased that Pope Francis is prioritizing human trafficking,” said Ms. Dionne. While many Catholic organizations are working to combat human trafficking in Canada, “it’s mostly the nuns … and less men are involved,” she said.
She hopes the work of Pope Francis will make more Canadian Catholics realize that human trafficking is “not just going on elsewhere … but it’s happening in Canada to Canadian citizens.”
The 2013 Global Slavery Index estimates that 29.8 million people are enslaved worldwide, approximately 5,863 of whom are in Canada. However, Karlee Sapoznick, executive director of the Canadian NGO Alliance Against Modern Slavery, says that number is likely much higher.
“I hope there’s a trickle-down effect…from the Vatican’s message,” said Moira McQueen, executive director of the Canadian Catholic Bioethics Institute. “Most people don’t know the facts about human trafficking [so] awareness and action is needed,” she said.
Others are hoping that this conference will bring Canadian Catholic organizations closer to the Catholic work at the international level.
Canada is relatively disconnected from Catholic work at the Vatican level, said Martin Mark, director of office for refugees at the archdiocese of Toronto. Mr. Mark’s organization will look to the Vatican’s for guidance and best practices around anti-human trafficking, particularly labour trafficking, and hopes that this initiative will lead to closer collaboration with the pontifical council.
The Catholic Church in Canada needs to ensure this is not just a one-time action, said Dr. Mark, but that such actions “become part of our daily lives.”
The Pontifical academies will host another human trafficking conference in 2014 and worldwide summit in 2015. A final statement from the Vatican on the conference outcomes is expected in the next few days.