Vatican focuses on human trafficking

Pope Francis requested months ago that a conference be organized that can help clarify the dimensions of human trafficking, a serious crime against human dignity in order to explore new ways to better combat it. The workshop was organized by the Pontifical Academies for Sciences and for Social Sciences. Pope Francis is well aware that this criminal trade destroys the lives of so many millions of human beings. He was directly involved in combating it in Buenos Aires.

The weekend international workshop was organized under the title of “Trafficking in Human Beings: Modern Slavery. Destitute peoples and the message of Jesus Christ.” About seventy delegates gathered in Rome, from the Church civil society, including representatives of some of the Bishops Conference most deeply involved with this problem and of the United Nations organizations active in the field.

This phenomenon involves over 20 million people worldwide. The workshop is just a first step and more activities are planned for 2014.

See video clip here