CNA\/EWTN News<\/a>).- Following a Vatican conference on human trafficking, Cardinal Vincent Nichols lamented the millions of victims and spoke of initiatives that provide an opportunity for them to come forward.<\/p>\n\tIn an April 10 interview with CNA, the cardinal said that although it is difficult to give an exact number of how many have suffered at the hands of modern slavery, \u201cone is too many.\u201d<\/p>\n
\tCardinal Nichols of Westminster participated in the April 9-10 conference, which gathered both ecclesiastical and civil authorities from more than 20 nations to the Vatican in order to discuss the proper methods for combating human trafficking.<\/p>\n
\tReferring to the speech of one of the four trafficking victims who gave their testimony during the meeting, Cardinal Nichols noted that \u201cone of the most poignant things\u201d she said was, \u201cI am now free, but millions are not.\u201d<\/p>\n
\t\u201cAnd it was her capacity in having made a painful, painful journey\u2026her capacity to have empathy with those who are still in the darkness of slavery. That touched me very deeply.\u201d<\/p>\n
\tThe cardinal also spoke of some of the various efforts that are being made in order to assist victims, giving special notice to religious communities. This is because in places such as London \u201cwhere somebody has been rescued and they wanted to go back to another country,\u201d it has been possible for religious sisters \u201cto simply lift up the phone and talk to a convent of theirs in that other country.\u201d<\/p>\n
\tAfterwards, the sisters in the other convent \u201cwould then drive four hundred miles to then meet this other person and keep them safe,\u201d he explained, observing that \u201cthere are the immediate links and the immediate networks religious congregations offer which nobody else does.\u201d<\/p>\n
\tOn a new effort which he is hoping to begin in London \u2013 called the Bakhita project \u2013 Cardinal Nichols said he hopes the initiative will develop into \u201ca kind of a hub of best practice.\u201d<\/p>\n
\tIt would, he continued, \u201cinclude giving people long term help, but also training in the skills needed for the help that is required. So we hope that it will be a center of excellence.\u201d<\/p>\n
\tExplaining the significance of the project's name, the cardinal highlighted that it \u201cwill be called St. Bakhita house because St. Josephine Bakhita, who was herself a slave and was rescued and then spent fifty years in a life of prayer and generosity \u2013 she's our patron Saint.\u201d<\/p>\n
\tAlso present at the for the conference was commissioner of the Metropolitan Police in London, Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe, who spoke to CNA April 10 on the importance of the collaboration between the Church and civil society in finding solutions to the situation of trafficking.<\/p>\n
\tTheir collaboration so far is \u201cworking really well\u201d he said, stressing that \u201cyou have to have partnerships.\u201d<\/p>\n
\t\u201cWe can talk to the victims as witnesses, but charities and the Church can help find them accommodations, give them counseling.\u201d<\/p>\n
\tDescribing how 99 percent of persons rescued from trafficking \u201cwant to go home and can't,\u201d Hogan-Howe said that \u201cwe enable that to happen\u2026we help them through the court process. And charities and the Church help with all of that with health advice.\u201d<\/p>\n
\t\u201cSo it's vitally important that the victim\u2019s initial needs are to stop the violence. That's where the police come in, and the prosecution,\u201d he went on to say, highlighting that victims \u201chave many other needs, and the charities help those needs.\u201d<\/p>\n
\tOn why the issue has been gaining such widespread attention across the globe over the last few years, the commissioner explained that \u201cI think people are beginning to realize what a big problem it is.\u201d<\/p>\n
\t\u201cFirst of all, numerically, we\u2019re talking about millions of people trapped in these awful circumstances. And secondly the cases are awful in themselves.\u201d<\/p>\n
\t\u201cEach one is serious,\u201d he observed, \u201cso this is people who are seriously beaten up, sometimes they can be murdered, certainly sexual violence is quite frequent, they\u2019re kept under control by use of drugs, and they can\u2019t get away.\u201d<\/p>\n
\tThe knowledge that these people \u201ccan\u2019t contact their families, they don\u2019t feel able to contact the enforcement agencies, so they\u2019re trapped,\u201d is something that \u201chas gradually dawned for so many people.\u201d<\/p>\n
\tA key goal for everyone who participated in the Vatican\u2019s conference, which is the second addressing the issue of human trafficking since 2012, and with another slated to occur in November, is to convince more victims to come forward, he noted.<\/p>\n
\t\u201cWe are not going to prosecute you for prostitution, we are not going to prosecute you for being an illegal migrant where it is clearly shown that you are, that you\u2019re a slave, that you are being trafficked, that violence is being used against you\u201d is the main message they want to send to victims, Hogan-Howe explained.<\/p>\n
\tNow \u201cyou have many people who are starting to believe that\u2019s true, because sometimes people don\u2019t,\u201d the commissioner continued, \u201cso we're getting over that message. We\u2019re here to help, and we\u2019re here to sanctuary.\u201d<\/p>\n
\tTouching on his hopes for the fruits of these conferences, Hogan-Howe noted that a key goal is to find more practical ways for police to work together in different countries, and to have more people come forward for help.<\/p>\n
\t\u201cInstead of seeing only one percent of the victims come forward, we\u2019ll see a hundred percent.\u201d<\/p>\n
\tCardinal Nichols echoed the commissioner, saying \u201cwe must begin to evaluate and see how effective our practice is.\u201d<\/p>\n
\t\u201cStep by step these meetings are getting more into the details, more into the practice and more into the sharing of what is operationally successful.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n
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Vatican City, Apr 13, 2014 \/ 04:02 pm (CNA\/EWTN News).- Following a Vatican conference on human trafficking, Cardinal Vincent Nichols lamented the millions of victims and spoke of initiatives that provide an opportunity for them to come forward.<\/p>\n
\tIn …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1031,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6050","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-vatican"],"yoast_head":"\n
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