(12/02/2018)- Rome
The pope met in the Vatican with participants in the International Day of Prayer and Awareness against Human Trafficking. Among them were victims, religious sisters who rescue people, and young volunteers.
It was a Q&A style meeting, where the pope explained that in human trafficking there is a lot of hypocrisy.
Pope Francis said "There are entrepreneurs who hire young people for slave labor, or take them. There are consumers who go to girls who are not free, but are slaves. Because when those girls return to their boss' house, we can call him the mafia boss, they must pay him an amount every day."
Vivian Fernando – The Philippines, shares her experience; We the members of the different congregation in the Philippines make an effort, extending our services to end human trafficking giving priority to 4 P’s ; prevention, protection, partnership and prosecution. We also collaborate with other organizations, that has the same concern and we share our efforts together to respond Pope Francis’s call to end the modern day’s slavery.
As a member of the Talita kum – Philippines, organizing team, I had the great opportunity to be part of this celebration and to witness to the global effort to eradicate the human trafficking.