Vatican Decries Worsening Scourge of Modern Slavery

ACCRA, Ghana, November 20, 2007 (CISA) - There are over 27 million people who live in enslaved conditions around the world today, a Vatican official said. Archbishop Agostino Marchetto, secretary of the Pontifical Council for the Pastoral Care of Migrants and Itinerant Peoples, was referring to reports from the International Labour Organization (ILO).

He was speaking at a seminar in Ghana organized by the Catholic Bishops of Africa and Europe on the theme ‘I know the sufferings of my people (Ex. 3, 7) - Slavery and the new forms of Slavery’. The seminar was held November 13 to 18 to mark the 200th anniversary of the abolition of slavery. The major cause of modern slavery is poverty, Archbishop Marchetto told the meeting. “We must not forget that the root cause of this horrendous phenomenon of the new forms of slavery is, above all, the enormous economic gap between rich and poor countries, and between the rich and the poor within the same country,” he said.

According to the International Labour Organisation, there are three types of modern enslavement: those imposed by the state, commercial sexual exploitation and economic exploitation, said Archbishop Marchetto. Enslavement imposed by the state includes child soldiers, where as many as 300,000 children have been coerced or induced to take up arms as child soldiers. Human trafficking is rampant worldwide, amounting to about 32.9 million people by the end of last year, according to the UN. Archbishop Marchetto said the number was most likely higher because those who have no legal status or are not properly documented may have escaped the estimate. Human trafficking is encouraged by other modern tragedies, migration and the high number of refugees caused by war, insurrections and in some cases natural disasters, he added. The archbishop commended the Catholic Church and the international community on their constant effort to fight modern day slavery.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Disclaimer
No responsibility or liability shall attach itself to either myself or to the blogspot ‘Mozlink’ for any or all of the articles/images placed here. The placing of an article does not necessarily imply that I agree or accept the contents of the article as being necessarily factual in theology, dogma or otherwise.
Mozlink