Local churches ‘failing to engage’ with groups fighting human trafficking

An Irish missionary who has championed the protection of women and children from sexual slavery in the Philippines says the work of the Church’s anti-trafficking Santa Marta Group is too slow.

Speaking to The Tablet after he was awarded the Hugh O’Flaherty International Humanitarian Award for his work with children as young as nine who have been forced into sexual slavery by paedophile rings, Fr Shay Cullen said the Santa Marta initiative had “many years to catch up with”.

He also expressed frustration that a document outlining a plan of action for dioceses around the world to combat trafficking, which the Vatican invited him and other campaigners to put together in September 2015, had failed to materialise in dioceses.

The Columban priest said: “Pope Francis is great on big statements and actions at that level, but it is not getting to the grassroots.” He added that local churches were “not engaged”.

He also stressed that Amnesty International’s support for the decriminalisation of prostitution was one of the major issues facing the Santa Marta Group. The decriminalisation of prostitution “has opened the door for traffickers who are able to bring in women and put them in mega brothels and they are protected by law – the sex mafia say it is all legal”, he said. “But the women are victims of trafficking and in debt. They owe money and their families are threatened back home by these traffickers. This is maybe where law enforcement and the  Church people must get working.”

The Santa Marta Group, which has members in more than 30 countries, recently held its fourth conference in Rome. Afterwards Cardinal Vincent Nichols, a founding member, said the group “is actively seeking ways for key partnerships, particularly between the police and the Church, to move from initial conversations to informal partnerships”.