Bishops pledge to use church resources to stop human trafficking

Published: 2007-09-14

WASHINGTON (CNS) -- Calling human trafficking "a horrific crime against the basic dignity and rights of the human person," Bishop Gerald R. Barnes of San Bernardino, Calif., said the Catholic bishops "pledge to use the resources of the church to help end this affliction. We also pledge to use our teaching authority to educate Catholics and others about human trafficking," said Bishop Barnes, chairman of the U.S. bishops' Committee on Migration. "It is hard to imagine that, in the 21st century, fellow human beings could be exploited and forced to work in the sex industry and other industries against their will," Bishop Barnes said in a statement dated Sept. 12 and released the next day by the U.S. bishops' conference in Washington. "As many as 700,000 persons are trafficked globally each year," the bishop said, including an estimated 17,500 trafficked each year into the United States. Human trafficking, Bishop Barnes said, is "a modern-day form of slavery, and it is the largest manifestation of slavery today."

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