The mass movement of desperate people has become one of the defining images of the age.

The mass movement of desperate people has become one of the defining images of the age. Almost as defining, unfortunately, is the hostile reaction to it in countries on the receiving end, where the politics of anti-immigration have proved a powerful vote-winner. But there are more compassionate answers to stemming the flow than barbed wire, and one of them has been on display last week in Nigeria. A conference of NGOs, law enforcement agencies, government officials and church representatives has just finished in Abuja, the country’s capital. The message is that the international traffic in people, often in conditions of slavery or akin to slavery, can be disrupted by effective interventions at local level, and that the Church, acting in concert with local law enforcement agencies, has a crucial role to play.

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