Women, young men and children are being transported into slavery all around our world. Our sisters see evidence in every part of the world that we work in. From child labour to child soldiers, from domestic service to bonded labour, from child pornography to forced prostitution - slavery is still very much with us. Children have been sold for the price of a television, young women seeking a way out of poverty have responded to fake job advertisements and unknowingly been recruited into a life of sexual slavery and exploitation. 
These days we call it Human Trafficking.

What is human trafficking?

“The recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring, or receipt of persons by improper means, such as force, abduction, fraud, or coercion, for an improper purpose, like forced or coerced labour, servitude, or sexual exploitation.”

This definition is based on the United Nations Protocol to Prevent, Suppress, and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women. (2000). And it’s big business!! The profits are staggering. It is estimated that a woman who has been trafficked into forced prostitution can bring in anything between $75,000 and $250,000 a year for her ‘owner’ as part of what has become a $32 billion international industry. This makes trafficking the second largest organised criminal activity after the illegal arms trade, beating the drugs trade into third place. In fact, it has been suggested that some organised crime rings are moving out of the drugs trade into human trafficking because it is more lucrative and less dangerous!! 

“The trade
in human persons constitutes a shocking offence
against
human
dignity
and a
grave
violation of fundamental human
rights.”

John Paul II

As part of our commitment as a congregation to the issue of Trafficking of persons, we attend the Vision and Action Group of the Medaille Trust (formerly the Inter-Congregational Working Party on Sex Trafficking) and our Justice and Peace Centre hosts the TRAC Group (the campaigning arm of the Medaille Trust)

Now a charity in its own right, Medaille is supported by over 50 religious congregations, has a board of Trustees and is steered by the Vision and Action group.  Medaille has two safe houses for rescued women (and in some cases, their babies).