Participants discuss increases in human trafficking, modern slavery

Published: 2006-10-23

VILNIUS, Lithuania (CNS) -- The increase in human trafficking is connected to poverty and an increase in women migrating under dangerous circumstances, said participants at an international conference. Torsten Moritz, project secretary for the Conference of European Churches' Commission for Migrants in Europe, said that "more and more people are migrating under increasingly dangerous circumstances because more and more rich countries are closing their borders. More women are migrating nowadays, and we know that for a variety of reasons women are those often most desperately affected by poverty and those most in danger when they migrate, becoming an easy target of the traffickers," said Moritz, whose organization represents Protestant, Anglican, Orthodox and Old Catholic churches. Some 50 experts from 11 countries met in Vilnius to discuss "New Challenges in the Area of Human Trafficking: The Spread of Information." The conference was organized by the Commission for Migrants in Europe and included foreign experts, local governmental agencies and police, as well as representatives of Caritas Lithuania, the Catholic Church's charitable arm in the country.

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