A British academic leading a Vatican summit on human trafficking has called on governments, financial institutions and Catholic parishes to take practical steps to prevent the scourge of modern day slavery.
Professor Margaret Archer, President of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences, would like a “victims charter” to offer ways to help those trafficked and stressed that parishes across the world provide an ideal network to offer assistance.
Speaking at a Vatican press conference on Monday, Professor Archer explained that the workshop - “Assisting Victims in Human Trafficking - Best Practice in Resettlement, Legal Aid and Compensation” - heard from the Bank of Montreal, Canada about how to track down “digital deposits” in suspicious accounts linked to trafficking. Joseph Mari, a senior manager at the bank, addressed the gathering about role of cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology in money laundering and how it is linked to the slave trade.
The profits from human slavery, Professor Archer pointed out, were now outpacing those from the drugs industry and the sale of arms and that tracking the ill-gotten gains of traffickers was an important “new angle” on the problem.
But despite the scale of the problem the social scientist from Warwick University said “few state legislators know to deal with the trafficked” and that too many had “grandiose ambitions not realised in reality.” There was also, she added, a confusion over the difference between a trafficked person, a smuggled person, asylum seekers and economic migrants and that the problem also includes the trafficking of human organs.
Professor Archer stressed the need to help victims at a practical level such as “paying the rent, buying food and finding schools for the children” and that the network of Catholic parishes need to be better utilised.
She has personally set up a charity “Housing, Help and Hospitality” to help victims and bought a house in Kenilworth, Warwickshire which is being lived in rent free by two Nigerian women and their children. Volunteers from the local parish are helping with the project. A similar initiative has also been established by the Archdiocese of Westminster at Bakhita House.
Sharing a platform with Professor Archer on Monday was Rani Hong, sold into slavery aged 7 after being kidnapped in South India. She eventually made her way to the United States and is now a leading figure campaigning against trafficking
Also present at the Vatican press conference was Professor John McEldowney who on Saturday was appointed as a member of the Pontifical Academy for Social Sciences. He, like Professor Archer, is based at the University of Warwick: a law academic Professor McEldowney has expertise on legal efforts to prevent trafficking. He is also a former World Bank visiting fellow at the Venezuela Supreme Court.
The Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences and the Pontifical Academy of Sciences is led on a day-to-day level by Bishop Sánchez Sorondo, an Argentinian prelate who is close to Pope Francis. Soon after Francis election, the Pope called on the pontifical academies to focus their efforts on preventing trafficking which has seen Bishop Sorondo convene a series of high-level summits on the topic. This week the Pontifical Academy of Sciences is holding a gathering of judges and prosecutors on how to prevent human trafficking and organised crime.
The latest workshop took place from the 4th-6th November at the Casino Pio IV, a renaissance villa located in the Vatican gardens.
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