Conference on fighting the human trafficking
On 8th May the Ombudsperson for children’s rights E. Žiobienė and her senior adviser A. Bedorf participated in a conference against the human trafficking, organized by England and Wales Catholic Bishops' Conference together with Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace and Pontifical Council for Migrants and Travelers pastoral care in Vatican.
The conference focused on the issues of prevention of human trafficking, pastoral care and reintegration of the victims.
Organizers drew attention to the fact that every day men, women and children are bought or sold to sexual or domestic slavery, forced work in constructions or farms. Human trafficking nowadays is the second most profitable kind of criminal activity (after the illicit arms trafficking). According to the organizers, there are 1.1 billion Catholics in the world and Roman Catholic Church can use its global network to combat this phenomenon.
Conference was attended by various institutions, organizations from around the world: the Vatican, Italy, United Kingdom, United States, Canada, Holland, Czech Republic, Switzerland, Albania, Moldova, Poland, Nigeria, South Africa, and others.
On 9th May the Ombudsperson for children’s rights E. Žiobienė and her senior adviser A. Bedorf participated in Vatican radio broadcast and discussed the main aspects of human trafficking and the outcomes of the conference.