Vatican sponsors UN panel on Human Trafficking and here's the simple solution they found

Human trafficking has an underlying economic cause.

If you want to end child human trafficking, one solution is to pay workers more. This is one of the many solutions offered by a child human trafficking conference at the UN. The Vatican was one of the sponsors of the event.

LOS ANGELES, CA (California Network) - On July 13, the Vatican sponsored a panel discussion on eliminating child trafficking at the UN.

Speakers from around the world shared their experiences and offered ideas to help combat child trafficking in particular. A recurring theme in the discussion was labor and pay.

When most people think about child trafficking, they think about children used as sex slaves for pimps, often in the Third World. This is a common problem, but children are also exploited for labor. Sometimes own parents sell their children into slavery.

The pressure behind the problem is entirely economic. Poor children are sold into slavery or are forced to work because of poverty. The chief cause of poverty is simply a lack of money. It is important that we stop viewing the poor as morally deficient, and understand that fair compensation for labor is uncommon.

Children whose families are poor are especially vulnerable to exploitation. People who cannot afford basic necessities are often exploited to become slaves or to sell their children into slavery.

The forum suggested better pay for laborers would help. They also advised businesses to evaluate their supply chains to ensure no goods are produced with slave labor.

It was also pointed out that it's demand, more than anything, that drives child slavery. The demand for cheap labor and the demand for sex.

The Catholic Church, which has a long history of fighting against slavery, continues to lead the fight against human trafficking. Archbishop Bernardino Auza told the panel, "The Second Vatican Council, St John Paul II, and Benedict XVI all spoke out passionately and forcefully against the infamy of human trafficking and the widespread hedonistic and commercial culture that encourages this systematic exploitation of human dignity and rights."

One in three victims of trafficking is a child, and 80 percent of child victims are prepubescent. By all estimates, the number of people working as slaves is higher today than at any other time in human history.

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