Passionists and the struggle against Human Trafficking

Passionists International is the U.N. Office for the Passionist communities throughout the world. Through Passionists International the Passionist family addresses global issues of social concern that relate to our own Christian values of being in solidarity with those who suffer from social injustice. In the recent social encyclical by Pope Benedict XVI the Catholic Church spoke out againts this grave social injustice.

Sr. Mary Ann Strain, CP is a co-director of Passionists International. She attended last weeks UN meetings on Human Trafficking. Her article follows the quote from Pope Benedict XVI.

 

…In [some] cases international tourism has a negative educational impact both for the tourist and the local populace. The latter are often exposed to immoral or even perverted forms of conduct, as in the case of so-called sex tourism, to which many human beings are sacrificed even at a tender age. It is sad to note that this activity often takes place with the support of local governments, with silence from those in the tourists’ countries of origin, and with the complicity of many of the tour operators. -Pope Benedict XVI, Caritas in Veritate, #61

 

U.N. Event on Human Trafficking

The United Nations hosted a special event at its New York Headquarters last week for the victims and survivors of human trafficking, with Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon issuing a broad-based call to action for States to tackle the root causes and ensure swift justice against the perpetrators.

“Our fight against human trafficking is guided by three Ps: prevention, protection and prosecution,” he said in an opening address at the event at which four survivors bore living witness with accounts of their own horrific plight, including a girl who was abducted at age 14 by Ugandan rebels and kept as a sex slave for eight years.

“We must also empower victims. They need support systems, information and education. They need viable ways to earn a living. They also need criminal justice systems to pursue traffickers, and subject them to serious penalties. Conviction rates in most countries are microscopic compared to the scope of the problem. But when States help victims, the victims can help States break up trafficking networks.”

Mr. Ban cited a litany of abhorrent practices, including debt bondage, forced labor, torture, organ removal, sexual exploitation and slavery-like conditions. “Human trafficking injures, traumatizes and kills individuals. It devastates families and threatens global security,” he declared of a worldwide industry that generates billions of dollars in profit at the expense of millions of victims.

“Human trafficking touches on many issues, from health and human rights to development and peace and security. Our response must be equally broad, and must tackle this challenge at its roots,” he added, noting that the global economic crisis is making the problem worse as jobs and food get scarcer and rising social exclusion makes minorities and women especially vulnerable

Survivors of human trafficking who addressed the event included Charlotte Awino, abducted at age 14 by Lord’s Resistance Army rebels in Uganda and kept as a sex slave for eight years; Buddhi Gurung from Nepal, trafficked for labor to Iraq to work on a United States military base; Kika Cerpa from Venezuela, forced into prostitution by a man she thought of as her boyfriend; and Rachel Lloyd, an activist who survived commercial sexual exploitation as a teenager and started a New York organization to aid girls victimized by sex traffickers.

 

Horrifying Statistics

Today in the world, there are more slaves than when slavery was legal. There are an estimated 27 million victims of human trafficking that live in every major city across the world. Contemplating this, we see a picture of suffering on a magnitude too staggering to comprehend.

• Human trafficking is a $10 billion+ growth industry with conservative estimates ranging from 700,000 to 2 million people – primarily women and children – trafficked into prostitution and slavery annually.
• Human trafficking is the third largest criminal business worldwide, after trafficking in drugs and weapons.
• For traffickers it has been a high profit, low risk enterprise. Laws against trafficking in persons do not exist or are not enforced in many countries.
• The most common form of human trafficking (79%) is sexual exploitation. The victims of sexual exploitation are predominantly women and girls.
• In 30% of the countries that provide information on the gender of traffickers, women make up the largest proportion of traffickers. In some parts of the world, women trafficking women is the norm.
• Worldwide, almost 20% of all trafficking victims are children. However, in some parts of Africa and the Mekong region, children are the majority (up to 100% in parts of West Africa).

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay, whose office organized the Giving Voice to the Victims and Survivors of Human Trafficking Special Event, stressed that persisting economic disparities, conflict and discrimination, particularly against women and migrants, continue to push those least able to protect themselves into dangerous situations from which they cannot escape.

 

How Can we End Human Trafficking?

The demand for prostitution is the main driver of the business of human trafficking. The best way to stop the demand for prostitution is to make the act of paying for sex illegal. Comparing the experience of the Netherlands and Germany where trafficking is criminalized but prostitution has been legalized with Sweden where there are strong penalties against pimps, brothel owners and traffickers and those who buy sex acts, but no penalties for women who are sold proves the point.

Proponents of legalized prostitution argue that legalization makes it possible to manage prostitution. They say that legalization will stop pimps and organized crime figures from controlling women through abuse and violence, reduce trafficking by stopping the buying and selling of women and children on the black market, curtail underage prostitution and reduce HIV/AIDS transmission by requiring prostitutes to undergo regular medical examinations.

The experience of Germany and the Netherlands argues against these claims. Here is how legalized prostitution has worked in these countries.

• Buyers continue to perpetrate violence against prostituted women and girls. In one study, 85% of prostituted women in the Netherlands reported having been raped in prostitution. Buyers can rate the performance of prostituted women and girls on-line. Women and girls who resist unsafe sex or perverted sex acts are punished by owners and pimps who still supply women and girls to “legitimate” brothels.
• In 1960, 95% of prostituted people in the Netherlands were Dutch; currently 80% are immigrants from poor countries.
• At least 70% of prostituted people in the Netherlands are undocumented.
• Child Right reports that between 1996 and 2001, the number of prostituted children in the Netherlands has increased from 4000 to 15,000. One-third are immigrants.
• Over the last decade the sex industry in the Netherlands has grown by 25%.
• Legalization has not reduced transmission of HIV/AIDS because most prostituted people remain undocumented and are therefore not tested and more significantly there are no laws requiring medical screening for buyers.

In contrast, there has been a decline in sex trafficking into Sweden. There, in addition to directing strong penalties against pimps, brothel owners and buyers, Sweden:

• Works to dismantle social attitudes that underlie the prevailing systemic inequality between women and men.
• Funds services for those who have been trafficked
• Has initiated an intensive public service campaign against the demand for trafficking

 

What Can Passionists do?

Passionists and other religious can use their positions of leadership in the Church to help stop the demand for human trafficking by:

• Preaching against buying sex, frequenting “gentlemen’s clubs,” patronizing porn sites on the Internet, etc.
• Promoting the passage of anti-trafficking laws that follow the Swedish model of punishing those who buy sex.
• Participate in awareness-raising groups that make known the situation of human trafficking in your country or region.
• Pray daily for an end to human trafficking.
• Speak out against the sexualization and commoditization of women and children in the media and on the Internet.

For more information please visit the following sites:

• Intercommunity Peace and Justice Center: Human Trafficking Resources
• United Nations Office on Drugs and Crimes: Global Report on Trafficking 

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