New partnerships between Church, police, state and NGOs across Africa were advocated today by a senior Cardinal as key to addressing the “tragedy of rampant modern-day slavery and human trafficking”.
Cardinal John Onaiyekan, Archbishop of Abuja, was speaking to the first Africa regional conference of the Santa Marta Group, set up four years ago to combat modern slavery as a result of initiatives by the Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales.
More than 40 million people globally are thought to be victims of modern slavery. Many women end up in prostitution in European countries such as the UK, while men end up in forced labour and other forms of exploitation.
Nigeria, where the conference is taking place, is one country of origin. About eight in ten of trafficking victims from Nigeria come from one state alone, Edo.
Cardinal Onaiyeken told the conference, organised by Caritas Nigeria and JDPC, that the phenomenon of human trafficking needed to be put into the context of faster transport and communication, and globalisation.
The Catholic Church in England and Wales has been in the front line of efforts to stem the tide, he added. Victims themselves are often effective instruments of their own liberation, when enabled to be, he added.
But questions had to be asked at the point of origin of the victims. “Why are people running away from their homes?” he asked. “All things being equal, people would prefer to stay at home rather than migrate to foreign lands.”
He also noted the problem of local trafficking, from rural to urban areas. “The large majority of African war refugees are moving within Africa. Relatively few find their way to Lampedusa.”
He called for Church and agencies across Africa to replicate the Santa Marta Group approach, working with national and international law enforcement and other agencies to fight the problem. “Finally, can we begin to address the cause of risky migrations? eg poverty, unemployment, youth exaggerated expectations in life abroad, greed and impatience to get rich fast and by any means.”
In an interview with The Tablet, the Cardinal added that there was no quick fix. “We can control it but we cannot solve the problem permanently. The important thing is to have some control over human trafficking. At the end of the day, the buck stops on the table of the law enforcement agencies.”
He described the case of one victim who escaped from prostitution in Italy and returned to Nigeria, but could not get help from any civil authorities. Desperate, she turned to the Church, which was able to help her find employment and get her life back together.
The Cardinal said: “Pope Francis takes this issue very seriously. He considers human trafficking as a major tragedy of our times. He puts it almost at the same level as climate change which he regards as a major danger to the entire planet.”
He said it is doing the smallest things, such as helping those who seek it, that can make the biggest difference.
The conference heard from three victims who had survived being trafficked.
One woman from Edo state set off for Italy but got as far as Libya. Promised money and a journey to Europe, her trafficker took her as far as Libya and then sold her to his brother as a “housekeeper”. She was raped and became pregnant, and when she tried to return to Nigeria, was accused of buying the baby as a passport to going back home.
Another woman described how she was trafficked by her own aunt. “She called my mum and said she wanted to sponsor one of her children, me. She said she had a school for me, abroad. I was already living in my grandmother’s house and someone came to pick me up from there.” She ended up in Italy, where she was finally told by her aunt she had been taken there for prostitution, and instruction on how to behave on the street in order to survive.
One woman described being given a coffin to sleep in, and how she was told that if she did not behave she would be sent home, dead, in the same coffin.
A young man from Sierra Leone who always dreamed of being a soccer star was introduced by members of his family to a “talent spotter”. He ended up in London, in a hotel, waiting for what he thought would be his try out for a club. All of a sudden three strange men appeared and began fighting with each other over who would be first to rape him. “They started saying he’s mine. They started fighting for me, touching and pulling me.” He was just 14. He managed to escape outside – and started crying. Finally he came across a Nigerian man who explained to him how to apply for asylum in the UK and he is now a British citizen. “I’m proud to say that today I’m British. I’m in a country where people care for each other. And I have the opportunity to share at places like this. We have loads of kids coming up that are desperate. There are so many desperate kids, they want their dream,” he told the conference.
Mgr James Cronin, parish priest of St Osmunds Barnes and former director of Missio, who is representing the Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales, said: “In apostolic exhortations and homilies, Pope Francis reminds us, the Church is not another NGO. Rather she is a mother and he says that people need to feel the tenderness of a mother. What do mothers do instinctively for their children? They prevent them from danger, protect them from harm and work in partnership with their children to ensure the best for them. Prevention, Protection and Partnership, these are the three Ps of the Sancta Marta Group.
“We are Church helping Church and both here and in the UK, the Church has identified talents and resources within itself to heal, both spiritually and physically and transform the broken lives of those who are vulnerable and have been cheated.”
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