“If we close our eyes and ears, if we remain inert to the reality of human trafficking, we will be accomplices.”
Pope Francis
July 30, World Day Against Trafficking in Persons, is the date set by the United Nations to raise awareness of the situation of victims of human trafficking and to promote and protect their rights.
Human trafficking has already surpassed arms trafficking in terms of its impact and capacity for social harm, and has positioned itself as the second largest provider of economic resources for organized crime in the world. It is a crime that transcends borders, that mutates, adapts and spreads easily.
To mobilize world public opinion against this scourge, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) has launched the Blue Heart campaign. The campaign is open to anyone who wants to participate and wear the BLUE HEART as a symbol of their support for the fight against human trafficking. This year 2024 has as its motto: “We can leave no child behind in the fight against human trafficking.”
After the COVID-19 pandemic, there have been substantial changes in the dynamics of the crime and it is necessary to recognize them in order to improve the fight against this form of serious human rights violation.
- Changes in the ways in which they are captured. The forms of recruitment that operate through the virtual world, social networks and online games have gained ground.
- Changes in the forms of exploitation. Sexual exploitation today is also carried out through online platforms, such as OnlyFans or similar, which are new forms of sexual exploitation that increasingly attract teenagers and young women; they develop the same patterns of prostitution and pornography, reproducing sexual violence towards women, with the “most atrocious” forms of male domination.
- Setbacks in confrontation policies, due to the weakening of States and the strengthening of market plundering strategies that have generated an increase in the material and subjective conditions necessary for the increase of human trafficking for different exploitation purposes and a weakening of public policies and of the possibilities for civil society action to successfully confront the fight against human trafficking.
In Peru, our Congregation is seriously committed to the fight against this scourge, which undermines the deepest part of the social fabric and so affects the victims who suffer from it that many great efforts are required to guarantee the survival of those affected by this cruel crime.
The Congregation is part of the -Kawsay Network-, Permanent Commission of CONFER (Conference of Religious of Peru) and it is through it, in a network of networks with CLAR, Talitha Kum International, Observa la Trata, Red Clamor and other national and international organizations, that we are generating different spaces to confront this crude reality.
As Kawsay Network we work in 4 areas: Prevention-Awareness-raising-Training, Advocacy, Accompaniment and Care for victims and survivors. As Sisters, we are directly involved in the dimensions of prevention, awareness-raising, training and advocacy, and occasionally support the accompaniment and care of victims and survivors.
In the jungle, in the villages and riverside towns of the Middle Ucayali, where we carry out our mission of pastoral-social accompaniment, we work permanently with the inhabitants and especially with the students of the schools and educational centers.
Traffickers do not sleep, that is why we do not let our guard down in the face of this scourge that steals dreams and destroys lives.
With all those who fight for dignity we say: STOP HUMAN TRAFFICKING!
Sr. Isabel Miguélez, CCV
