VATICAN CITY
Washington Post
By Josephine Mckenna | Religion News Service, Published: April 10
VATICAN CITY — Four women who were forced into sex slavery and later freed met Thursday (April 10) with Pope Francis at an international conference on human trafficking held at the Vatican to combat what the pontiff called a “crime against humanity.”
After a private meeting with the victims, the pope joined church officials and police chiefs from 20 countries, including the U.S., England, Thailand and Nigeria, in an effort to build global cooperation to fight the problem.
“Human trafficking is an open wound on the body of contemporary society, “ the pope told the conference. “I exhort the international community to adopt an even more unanimous and effective strategy against human trafficking, so that in every part of the world, men and women may no longer be used as a means to an end.”
The Catholic Church, citing International Labour Organization estimates, calculates that 2.4 million people are trafficked at any given time, with traffickers receiving more than $32 billion a year.
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