Vatican forms special team with Anglicans and Muslims to fight human trafficking

The Vatican has joined forces with the Anglican church and an Islamic institution to end human trafficking by 2020. The three forces have formed the Global Freedom Network.

LOS ANGELES, CA (Catholic Online) - The Vatican has joined forces with the Anglican church and Ahman el-Tayeb, a leading Sunni Muslim institution in Cairo, to found the Global Freedom Network. They were also joined by Andrew Forrest, the founder of the Walk Free Foundation, which will act as a partner in the Network's activities.

The Network will be devoted to the cause of ending human trafficking around the world by 2020.

Pray for an end to human trafficking!

The Network will take concrete steps to accomplish its goals. Among those steps will be campaigns of prayer, fasting and public awareness.

According to the Catholic Herald, there are also other steps that will be taken, including:

- Getting faith communities to ensure their "supply chains" and investments are free from using or profiting from slave labor.

- Getting governments and business worldwide also to "slavery proof" the goods and services they procure, produce or sell.

- Educating families, schools, worshipers and groups about how to detect and report possible instances of human slavery and trafficking.

- Convincing the world's 20 most developed nations to condemn modern slavery and trafficking, and support a global fund to help poorer countries enact and enforce anti-trafficking measures.

This campaign will run simultaneously as the Catholic Church continues its sustained campaign of "Prayer and Action.' This is also the first time the Vatican has worked with two diverse entities - the Anglican church and a Muslim institution to stage a global campaign.

It should be recognized that many faith communities agree on many fundamental moral principles, that slavery is a deep and abiding wrong, is among them.

Despite this powerful condemnation of the practice, slavery remains shockingly common. Slavery existing all countries of the world, and in cases with the tacit - if not formal approval of local authorities. Forced labor takes many forms including sweatshops, prostitution and drug rings, and instances of domestic slavery. Often, victims tend to be children because they are much easier to control. Girls are usually preferred to boys.

Slaves, typically employed as children typically follow a career which results in permanent injury, destitution, and death, often at a young age. For those who profit by slave labor, human beings are merely another commodity in the supply chain. As they get older or sick, their value diminishes to the point they are literally discarded.

Most people are lured into slavery with promises of paid work or because they are seeking asylum. In less common cases, children are sold by their own parents, or adults become slaves as a result of debt. People have also been kidnapped and forced into slavery.

Anglican Archbishop David Maxon told Catholic Herald that human trafficking had become "resistant" to efforts to "government, legal and police efforts to fight it." The Archbishop explained that a "combined approach was needed."

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