Nuns in Italy take to streets to help women forced into prostitution

Published: 2004-02-06

ROME (CNS) -- Often dressed in habits, religious women take to the streets at night offering friendship, advice and hope to thousands of foreign women forced into prostitution on the streets of Italy. As part of a wider effort to stop the trafficking of human beings, the U.S. Embassy to the Vatican, the U.N.-related International Organization for Migration and the Italian Union of Major Superiors have designed a program to train workers to help the women flee their controllers and get off the streets. A pilot version of the program, funded by the U.S. government, was offered Jan. 26-Feb. 6 in Rome to 27 religious women, most of whom already were doing similar work. Jim Nicholson, U.S. ambassador to the Vatican, told reporters Feb. 5, "Slavery was ended once before, and we can do it again." The ambassador said the problem must be attacked by educating the public and politicians about the reality of human trafficking, by designing prevention programs in the countries of origin and by training people to help those who manage to escape their controllers.

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