A major new international partnership between the Church and law enforcement agencies is to be announced at next week’s meeting in London of the Santa Marta group to combat human trafficking.
Chaired by Cardinal Vincent Nichols, the meeting will be attended by Home Secretary Theresa May, Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe and Nigerian Cardinal John Onaiyekan.
Also due to be present will be church leaders and police chiefs, as well as representatives of victims’ organisations, from 27 countries. Under discussion will be ground-breaking 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 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, pioneering schemes that, according to Mr Hyland, create partnerships where links would have been unthinkable in the past.
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 such a wide range of different agencies and partners together,” said Mr Hyland.
Unicef estimates that 1.2 million children are trafficked each year, and across the world many millions are forced into labour, bought and sold, and tricked into becoming sex workers.
As well as providing a model for partnership that could help combat trafficking, Mr Hyland said churches could be important places for reaching out to victims because “a lot of trafficked victims are still allowed to attend Mass or church services and it’s important that we should help give other churchgoers the information they need to identify and help them.”
Meanwhile the Pontifical Council for Migrants and Travellers announced this week that the first International Day of Prayer and Awareness against Human Trafficking would take place on 8 February, the feast of St. Josephine Bakhita, a Sudanese slave who eventually was freed and became a Canossian nun.
Above: Srs Ancy Mathew, Mary Chennattu and Sr Shalini go out with police, providing emotional and practical support to trafficking victims. Photo: Catholicnews.org.uk
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