Catholic social teaching calls us take this economic responsibility seriously:    

Individual Christians who are shareholders and those responsible within church institutions that own stocks in U.S. corporations must see to it that the invested funds are used responsibly. Although it is a moral and legal fiduciary responsibility of the trustees to ensure an adequate return on investment for the support of the work of the church, their stewardship embraces broader moral concerns. As part owners, they must cooperate in shaping the policies of those companies through dialogue with management, through votes at corporate meetings, through the introduction of resolutions and through participation in investment decisions. (Economic Justice for All, 354)

The work of promoting corporate responsibility involves all the issues that are of social concern to our Catholic faith. However there was one issue that was raised at the ICCR sessions that I would like to profile here as an issue that calls us awareness and action. The issue involves the production of cotton in the country of Uzbekistan. The product is now called Uzbek cotton. Cotton is a prominent commodity in the world. It’s primary use is in textile goods and our clothing wear. Cotton is also a key ingredient in the food supply. Uzbekistan is a major producer of cotton. There are two major issues revolving around Uzbek cotton production and they both are critical issues of social injustice.

The first issue that needs to be raised is with regards to forced child labor. In this case we are not talking about individual private enterprises that engage in this practice. Instead we are referring to a government sanctioned program that forces children to work in the cotton fields of Uzbekistan. Uzbekistan forces children officially from the age of 10 (although children as young as 7 have been found working the fields) to pick cotton. There are approximately 2 million children that are sent to work for 2-3 months a year and they are given a specific quota that they must pick. Children are forced to work in the field unless they are able to buy their way out. The government of Uzbekistan owns all the cotton gins and this have a purchase monopoly of cotton through 3 state owned trade organizations. Uzbekistan pays their farmers $.03 per kilo of cotton. The basic dignity of these children are being violated on these grounds

The second issue that is no less troubling is the critical environmental degradation that is taking place with regards to water, the most basic necessity for all humans. The Aral Sea was once the 4^th largest inland sea in the world. Since 1960, when the Soviet Union diverted all their rivers in order to irrigate the cotton fields, the Sea began to decline steadily until now it is less than 10% of its original size. All native species of fish are gone. Because of the nature of the cotton industry the remnant of the Aral Sea and the diverted rivers have been horribly polluted, dyes have contaminated the fresh water rivers and because the sea has shrunk so dramatically what remains is a highly salinized. Ironically the area now has 70% unemployment (ironic in that the reason for the environmental degradation was for the promotion of a particular industry.) This unemployment has been particularly felt in the fishing industry which is practically non-existent.

Even with international pressure Uzbekistan is unwilling to seriously address this issue. As religious investors the Passionist and the other ICCR members are strategizing how to utilize our investment portfolio to organize on this issue. Investors can go to ICCR to take part of these strategies as Socially Responsible Investors (SRI) advocates. As consumers however everyone can take part of this issue. The Uzbek cotton campaign is a very popular movement and many companies are boycotting Uzbek cotton in their own products. Most recently LL Bean, Hanes and J. Crew are now part of this movement. However there are still a number of American garment companies that are using Uzbek cotton like Gymboree, Abercrombie & Fitch and Fred’s. Here are two organizations that offer updates on the boycott of Uzbek cotton.

The Cotton campaign: http://www.cottoncampaign.org/

Environmental Justice Foundation: http://www.ejfoundation.org/page141.html

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