The Santa Marta Group has signed an agreement with the US government’s criminal investigative arm to formalise their cooperation in combatting human trafficking.
The group signed the “memorandum of understanding” with Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) on 15 February, at a ceremony in New York hosted by the Holy See’s mission to the United Nations.
Cardinal Vincent Nichols, chair of the Santa Marta Group, said that the agreement “offers a model of how working together can effect change”.
It is “geared directly to combatting this evil crime, healing the wound of human trafficking and encouraging the defence of human dignity”, he said.
The Santa Marta Group originated in cooperation between Religious sisters and the Metropolitan Police Human Trafficking Unit during the London Olympics in 2012. It was launched in 2014 to develop similar partnerships internationally.
“With criminal profits of over $150 billion a year, combatting human trafficking requires collaboration and leadership across all sectors,” said Cardinal Nichols.
“To achieve those points of cooperation that will bring about the confiscation of the profit Pope Francis always calls ‘blood money’ and help the victims of this scourge on society depends upon partnerships based on trust.”
He said that Santa Marta had developed that trust with the HSI over recent years.
HSI is the branch of the US Department for Homeland Security responsible for investigating individuals and organised gangs involved in sex trafficking and forced labour. It also investigates modern slavery the supply chains of imports to the US.
The new agreement recognises the role of US laws in eradicating these practices worldwide. The Santa Marta Group will share intelligence with HSI in this work.
Steve Francis, acting executive associate director of HSI, said that the formal agreement “underscores the shared goal of HSI and the Santa Marta Group”.
“It demonstrates how law enforcement and the faith-based community, working together, can bring awareness and prevention of human trafficking, justice to its perpetrators, and relief to its survivors.”
The Holy See’s permanent observer to the UN, Archbishop Gabriele Giordano Caccia, expressed the Vatican’s support for the agreement, which he called “the formal recognition of a longstanding cooperation”.
“Trafficking does not have borders, nor does it have one single cause,” he said.
“Children, women and men are trafficked every day around the globe, in developing and developed countries alike, as a result of conflict, poverty, corruption, statelessness, lack of education or employment opportunities, as well as migration and smuggling.”
He warned that besides well-known trafficking practices for sexual exploitation and forced labour, new forms were emerging, “such as trafficking in new-born infants and in women who serve as surrogates”.
“Trafficking is a complex problem,” he said. “The fight against it must be grounded in a multidimensional and coordinated approach.”
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