SUBSCRIBE NOW

SIGHT

Be informed. Be challenged. Be inspired.

Christians urged to pray and walk with refugees and support victims of human trafficking

Christians have been urged to walk and pray with refugees and migrants and, in particular, to support those who fall into the hands of human traffickers.

Speaking to World Council of Churches representatives this week, Fr Fabio Baggio, undersecretary of migrants and refugees in the Vatican’s Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development, said that migrants, refugees and victims of human trafficking should be the “intention” of prayer, both in individual churches but also jointly. He added that “walking together with migrants, refugees, and survivors of human trafficking is just showing the merciful love of God to them”. 

Vatican WCC conference

Participants at the conference this week. PICTURE: WCC

Fr Baggio said that in his travels around the world he’s collected “plenty of examples” of Christians of various confessions cooperating together on what he calls the ‘four P’s’ – prevention, protection, prosecution and partnerships – to combat human trafficking as well as, in “hotspot” countries of origin for migrants, advocating for new legislation “calling governments to their responsibility” and “upholding the rights and dignity of victims or survivors”.

Fr Baggio was among church representatives who attended a conference in Rome this week – jointly organised by the Vatican and the WCC – which was looking at issues of xenophobia, racism, and populist nationalism in the context of global migration.

Highlighting the complexity of the issue of human trafficking today, he said that while in the past it was mainly linked to sexual exploitation, it is a much more complex phenomenon now, encompassing slave labour, organ trafficking, and women being bought and sold for reproductive purposes.

Earlier, in addressing the conference, Rev Dr Olav Fykse Tveit, general secretary of the WCC, said churches were called to confront together the destructive forces of xenophobia, racism and populist, exclusive nationalism. 

“The love of Christ includes the obligation to affirm the life and livelihoods of people and not to create the disasters of violence and war that force people to flee and to migrate,” he said. “The love of Christ requires us not to succumb to racism but to resist exclusion based on fear, the fear that fuels xenophobia and exclusive nationalism.”

He said people had gathered at the conference “because of our passion for the love of human beings”. “The main role of the churches is to speak up for the refugees and make space for them.”

Cardinal Peter Turkson, meanwhile, spoke of how globalisation had negatively impacted attitudes toward the “other”.

“As Pope Benedict observed in Caritas in Veritate, globalisation has brought us together, but it has not quite converted us into brothers and sisters,” he said. 

 

Donate



sight plus logo

Sight+ is a new benefits program we’ve launched to reward people who have supported us with annual donations of $26 or more. To find out more about Sight+ and how you can support the work of Sight, head to our Sight+ page.

Musings

TAKE PART IN THE SIGHT READER SURVEY!

We’re interested to find out more about you, our readers, as we improve and expand our coverage and so we’re asking all of our readers to take this survey (it’ll only take a couple of minutes).

To take part in the survey, simply follow this link…

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

For security, use of Google's reCAPTCHA service is required which is subject to the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.