New partnership to combat trafficking

A MAJOR international partnership between the Church and law enforcement agencies is to be announced at next week’s meeting of the Santa Marta group to combat human trafficking.

Chaired by Cardinal Vincent Nichols, the London meeting will be attended by Home Secretary Theresa May, Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe and Cardinal John Onaiyekan of Nigeria.

Also due to be present are church leaders and police chiefs, as well as representatives of victims’ organisations, from 27 countries. Under discussion will be groundbreaking partnerships forged between the Church and law-enforcement agencies in Britain, which it is hoped will serve as models for new schemes being launched around the world.

Kevin Hyland, recently appointed as Britain’s independent anti-slavery commissioner by the Home Secretary, said there would also be an announcement about a new church-led education programme to raise awareness of trafficking issues.

“It goes on right here in our midst, and yet many people know nothing about it,” Mr Hyland, who previously led the Met’s anti-trafficking unit, told The Tablet. “The new programme, though managed by the Catholic Church, will be about reaching everyone, whatever their beliefs, because we need the whole community onside to successfully tackle the horrors of trafficking.”

Seven months on from its inauguration in Rome, the Santa Marta group – so called because many participants in the original meeting in April were accommodated in the guest house in the Vatican where the Pope lives – has begun to take important steps in the battle against human trafficking. It is pioneering schemes that create partnerships where links would have been unthinkable in the past, said Mr Hyland.

In London, for example, Sr Ancy Mathew, of the Congregation of Adoratrices, and her team of volunteers at the charity Rahab, regularly go out on patrol with the Metropolitan Police, providing emotional and practical support to victims of trafficking. “The opportunities around the Santa Marta group are incredible because it’s got a national and international reach and it’s bringing a wide range of agencies and partners together,” said Mr Hyland.

Human trafficking has been described as the world’s fastest-growing crime.