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November 2008
J/P Alert is the newsletter of the Justice and Peace office of CMSM. It is intended to inform and stimulate discussion and involvement among the members. Its contents do not necessarily represent official positions of CMSM.
[The following is taken from the web site of UNANIMA-International. Further information and resources are available there.]
"In some cases there are women and girls who are destined to be exploited almost like slaves in their work, and not infrequently in the sex industry too.… I make my own the condemnation voiced by John Paul II against 'the widespread hedonistic and commercial culture which encourages the systematic exploitation of sexuality' (Letter of Pope John Paul II to Women, June 29, 1995, No. 5). This outlines a whole program of redemption and liberation from which Christians cannot withdraw."
Pope Benedict XVI
Message for World Day of Migrants and Refugees, January 15, 2005
What is Human Trafficking?
Trafficking is the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harboring or receipt of persons, by means of the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the use of power or of a position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation.
The Trafficked Victims are used for prostitution, domestic services, begging, and work in factories and plantations. They are often sexually abused, raped, beaten, tortured, exposed to hazardous working conditions, placed in forced confinement and denied basic health care and food. They are forced to have unprotected sex, exposing them to AIDS and are controlled by being forced to take drugs.
Factors that Sustain this Trafficking
The supply of trafficked victims is sustained and fostered by poverty, weak socio-political and economic structures, lack of employment, lack of education and human rights awareness, and a materialistic, patriarchal, violent culture. These elements are manipulated by advanced technology and with a well paid mass-media in a globalized system of extreme capitalism in which $=god and where everything is for sale, possession and use –even human beings.
The Main Cause: Demand
Human trafficking has become the greatest world-wide illicit business today because of the growing demand for victims to be used for commercial sex acts. Demand comes from three sources:
- purchasers of sex acts.
- profiteers in the sex industry.
- a culture that creates a demand for victims.
Who Purchases Sex Acts?
The men who seek out women, children, and sometimes men, for the purpose of soliciting and buying sex acts are the primary actors and constitute the primary level of demand. Without them prostitution wouldn't exist. Such buyers are all around us. By way of example, in Spain 39% of males go, or have gone to prostitutes and around 30,000 go every year as tourists to Latin America to have sex with minors. In Thailand, 73% and in Japan 37% of males go/have gone to prostitutes. In India approximately 10 million women and girls are exploited through prostitution. This means that many million men there exploit prostitutes. In Mexico alone 80% of women and girls brought out of the country for sexual exploitation are sent to the USA. ... and the list could go on and on.
What is the Sex Industry?
Activities which legally or illegally market and/ or sell sexual services/products in an organized way to profit from the sexual exploitation of children and women and men (D. Hughes).
Organized prostitution is the main form of sexual exploitation -in forms like escort services, call girls, operation of brothels, street prostitution, internet prostitution, massage parlors, strip clubs, lap-dancing clubs, telephone sex, marriage bureaus, and sex tourism.
Pornography plays a central role in the sex industry. Its production is a multimillion activity and it serves as a manual for the other forms of sexual exploitation. Porn has been one of the most powerful forces in the development of the Internet. Companies active in the porn industry try to sell their products via the mobile phone network. (D. Hughes)
The sex trade brings in around $10 billion a year and the greater the demand the greater the search for a supply. Profiteers, organized criminals, search for victims in all corners of the world among the most vulnerable people. Around 4 million women and 2 million children are trafficked every year. The vast extent of this network is due to the globalization of the economy with its world-wide exchange of information and services. The end is profit! As the profiteers say: Drugs are sold once and then consumed; women (or children) can be sold over and over again.
What kind of Culture Fosters Demand? Globalized Capitalism promotes gender, race and class inequality - ideal for the booming sex industry. It exacerbates these inequalities, supporting a patriarchal culture that relegates women and girls to second class and reinforces men's domination and possession of women and children as commodities. The media of globalized capitalism also fosters commercial depictions of the female body and sex. It influences knowledge and public opinion to develop in the viewers the need to try everything to experience pleasure, and with younger and younger children. Groups advocate for the legalization of prostitution as a form of work for women, based on the principle of free choice. But more than 90% never chose it and around 50% had been raped or abused prior to being exploited in prostitution.
Click here for the New Campaign Website to Stop the Demand for Trafficking in Women and Children.
For the Union of International Superiors
General Plenary 2001 the UISG/USG Working Group on Trafficking in Women
and Children distributed facts
sheets on the worldwide problem of trafficking. Subsequently the Declaration
of the Assembly urged religious communities worldwide to address this
issue with determination, at every level and in every country especially
by working in solidarity with one another.
The Working Group - headquartered in Rome- has available several resources and has made several suggestions for action.
An Information and Workshop Kit entitled "Trafficking in Women and Children" has been published in 4 languages (English, French, Italian and Spanish). This material can help raise awareness about the issue of trafficking with both male and female religious congregations, church groups, and networks of NGOs who collaborate with religious orders. Some of the topics that the kit addresses are:
- What is trafficking?
- Who are trafficked?
- What are the causes and mechanisms of trafficking?
- How to engage in theological reflection about the issue.
- How to identify strategies for combating trafficking.
- How to run a workshop about this issue.
For further copies of the kit contact: JPIC Commission of the USG/UISG, Via Aurelia 476, c.p.9099 (Aurelio), 00100 Rome, Italy. Email: jpic@mclink.it
Developments at the UN: General Assembly
Resolution with regard to Trafficking
Resolution 57/176 of the General Assembly (18 December 2002) requested
the Secretary General to compile successful interventions and strategies
in addressing the various dimensions of the problem of trafficking
in women and children (especially girls) and to report on the implementation
of this resolution at the 59th session. It also requested the Secretary
General to include in a report proposals for a future International/United
Nations Year against Trafficking in Persons especially Women and
Girls.
This report has been completed, its UN document number is A/59/185 and is available in the six official UN languages at the following web address of the Division of Advancement of Women.
70% of All Victims Are Women
ROME, JUNE 4, 2008 (Zenit). The trafficking of persons isn't an isolated issue, but rather one that is closely connected to various global issues of injustice and poverty, said the president of the International Union of Generals Superior.
Sister Louis Madore, of the Daughters of Wisdom, said this Monday at an international congress organized by the religious superiors and the World Organization of Migrations.
Religious from 20 countries and 31 congregations are participating in the weeklong event, which aims to educate women religious in the fight against trafficking, reinforce existing national and regional networks, and create the foundations for an international network.
In her introductory address, Sister Madore noted, "The traffic of persons is not an issue that is self contained. It is closely connected to global issues stemming from unjust and exploitative political and economic relations between countries with the increasing impoverishment of entire populations."
"This has grave consequences for women and we see the growing feminization of poverty and migration. Such situations, along with the increase of the commercialization of sex and social and cultural practices profoundly rooted in the discrimination of women and girls, make them easy prey of traffickers," she added.
"The traffic of persons is a very complex phenomenon," stressed the religious. "To work in this field is not an option but a necessity if we want to be, strategically, on the side of the most defenseless."
According to studies presented during the first day of the congress, there are between 600,000 and 820,000 victims of transnational trafficking per year.
Nearly 70% of those are women, many of whom are minors.
The congress is the fifth of its kind in
Rome. To date over 4,000 religious have participated.
The project is supported by the United States Embassy
to the Holy See and financed by the Office for Refugees
and
Migrants
of the
U.S. government.
DC
Conference: Human Trafficking in the Americas
[The following is a Catholic Relief Services (CRS) blog entry by Sara Fajardo, CRS communications officer. Further blog entries about the conference can be found at www.crs-blog.org/ .]
Around 70 participants from all corners of the globe gathered Nov. 2-5, 2008, at "The Human Trafficking in Persons in the Americas" conference held at the L'Enfant Plaza Hotel in Washington D.C.
There are two types of trafficking: sexual exploitation and forced labor.
Both U.S. citizens and foreign nationals are being trafficked in the United States, although they tend to be trafficked for different purposes. For U.S. citizens it is primarily for sexual exploitation, and with foreign nationals it is primarily for forced labor.
Sex trafficking is not just illegal prostitution as most might think, but runs the gamut of strip clubs, escort services, and marriage services to name a few.
Forced labor can take a variety of forms, from the legitimate business such as a nail salons, restaurants, or circus performances to non-legitimate businesses such as domestic servitude, and drug manufacturing and dealing.
These activities are not limited to specific regions of the U.S. and can be found in both rural and urban settings. Currently the top cities for human trafficking are Newark, L.A., New York, Houston and Miami.
Traffickers play on vulnerable persons, but they prey on U.S. citizens and foreign nationals differently.
Victims of domestic trafficking, according to Mestas, are usually women who are young, female, and fall within the 13-17 age range, but the USCCB has also seen as young as 12, and in some cases boys. They are coming from broken homes, in some cases living at a foster home, and end up running away or are lured away by adults over the internet. A few are kidnapped. The USCCB has heard of cases of kids being lured from malls or clubs. The traffickers tend to create an emotional dependency with the victims or foster drug and alcohol addiction in order to entrap them. They may also use violence and coercion.
In the past two years the USCCB has seen people from 72 different countries being trafficked into the U.S. Many are being recruited or lured and brought in by the traffickers. Many of those who are trafficked are looking for employment. They are frequently in the margins of society who are not protected, women, street youth, orphans. There are also cases of kidnapping.
They are being lured by a promise of a job, education, or marriage. Many see ads on the Internet or newspaper. Traffickers have found that recruiting is very effective tool to lure in potential victims.
The
Election: A Missionary's Perspective
Amy Woolam Echeverria, director, Columban Justice, Peace, and Integrity of Creation Office
It has taken me a couple of days to process the magnitude of the historical event that took place on November 4th in the Unites States. There has been much commentary on the election of the U.S.'s first African American president. My thoughts are neither profound nor deeply analytical; they will not make the editorial page of any newspaper. But in some small way, I hope that this reflection will offer some insight into the implications this election has for the coming years of mission in the United States.
As I sat in my living room, late Tuesday night, listening to the new president-elect of the United States, Barack Obama, I was moved by the power of voice; not Obama's voice, but the voice of the people of the United States. Leading up to the elections, there was much talk about the power of one person's vote as a way to encourage people to go to the polls. Our first African-American president is testimony to the power of an individual's voice when unified.
As a missionary in the United States, I could not help but think about this election in the context of our global reality. I thought about Evo Morales in Bolivia, the first Indigenous leader of that nation. I thought about Michelle Bachelet, the first woman president of Chile. I thought about Luis Lula da Silva, a man who reached only 4th grade but who eventually became the president of Brazil. I thought about Rwanda which has a majority of women in their national government. All of these presidents and elected officials reflect a shift of power from the minority to the majority.
With the election of its first African-American president, in some ways the United States reflects the trend in the Majority World which is the ever-rising chorus of the poor and marginalized who have found strength and power in their unity. It can be said that in this case, the United States is following the lead of our Global South neighbors rather than the other way around.
Barack Obama in his victory speech said, "This victory alone is not the change we seek. It is just a chance to make that change." Now the work begins. Just as millions of Bolivians, Brazilians, Chileans, Rwandans and countless others around the world who have worked to keep their leaders accountable, we too in the United States are called to keep our new President accountable. Whether it is immigration or Iraq, energy or education, healthcare or homeland security, trade or taxes or the many other issues with which the U.S. is faced we are called to be a hopeful voice that both disturbs and challenges. We can and should celebrate this milestone in this nation's history of race relations, but we must remember that there are many miles ahead that we must walk to bring universal justice and peace.
It would be foolish to think that there is a clear path before us. While the journey is unmarked the destination is clear. We are Kingdom builders. With each new reality we face, with each new twist of the road, we are challenged to work with new people, to learn new skills and to adopt new tools. We need not worry about designing the right house as the Gospel has given us the blueprint. What matters is that we build it together.
Consistent
Life Action Alert: On-line Petition
Consistent Life's member group Sojourners is collecting signatures for a "Prayer and Pledge" to call upon President-Elect Obama to be accountable for his promises and to pledge to be part of a citizen movement to help him when he does. One of the four items for high priority is explicitly the consistent life ethic, which includes ending the death penalty and reducing abortions; poverty and war are two of the other high priorities.
The case of abortion is most tricky, of course, since Obama's public rhetoric on this has not been consistent as to abortion reduction, his less publicly-known actions and statements have been worse, and he maintains a "pro-choice" position. Nevertheless, we must work with what we have, and trying to hold President-Elect Obama to the more positive parts of what he has said is one of many strategies we now have.
Those interested in either signing on or simply knowing more about this campaign can go to:
http://go.sojo.net/campaign/prayerandpledge/8us83erq7kbtk36?source=
act_0811_pledge
U.S.
Catholic Mission Association Resolutions
The United States Catholic Mission Association (USCMA) members have unanimously approved the resolutions on Ad gentes, Cluster Bombs, and AFRICOM (African Command) on the occasion of its 2008 Annual Mission Conference entitled "Mission: A Journey of Hope" held in Baltimore, Maryland on October 24-26, 2008.
"It is a very historic year in the life of the US Church in mission," says Executive Director Michael Montoya, MJ. As the whole Catholic Church celebrates the Pauline Jubilee year, the US Church is also commemorating 100 years of the Apostolic Constitution Sapienti Consilio issued by Pope Pius X on June 29, 1908 (the Solemnity of Saints Peter and Paul). It restructured the Roman Curia shifting responsibility for the U.S. hierarchy from the Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith to the Congregation for Bishops. The church leaders at that time understood that the Church in the United States was ready to be missionary. This was a milestone in the life of the young US church. It meant that she, with her laity, clergy and religious, had matured in the faith.
The resolution calls on the whole US Catholic Church to join "in commemorating the 100th anniversary of the US Catholic Church's contribution to mission Ad Gentes and a revitalization of our commitment to international and home missions in our second century of mission evangelization to those who have yet to hear the gospel and see it in action."
In the second resolution, USCMA members join Pope Benedict XVI, the US Catholic Bishops and other Faith leaders who have been vocal supporters of efforts to reduce and ultimately ban the use of landmines and the indiscriminate nature of failed cluster bomb "duds" (making them akin to landmines). For more than 40 years, these have killed and wounded innocent people, causing untold suffering, loss and hardship for thousands in more than 20 countries across the planet. The suggested actions for the Resolution include the support for the passage of Cluster Munitions Civilian Protection Act of 2007 (formerly S. 594/HR 1755) and signing the Cluster Bomb Petition (www.banminesusa.org).
Carrying the strength of a worldwide coalition of missionaries, many of whom work in areas affected by the cluster bombs, USCMA members unanimously passed the resolution that "calls on all governments to end the production, transfer, stockpiling, and use of cluster bombs."
The third resolution opposing the new U.S. military command for Africa (AFRICOM) is a joint resolution with the members of Africa Faith and Justice Network. The resolution calls upon the U.S. government "to stop the further militarization of Africa as demonstrated by the new U.S. military command for Africa (AFRICOM)." USCMA and AFJN promote a vision of a comprehensive foreign policy grounded in true partnership with the African Union, African governments, and civil society on peace, justice, security, and development. Many of USCMA members have been and or continue to be missionaries in Africa.
All of the three resolutions in their entirety can be seen on our web site.
Election
Observers for El Salvador
The SHARE Foundation invites you to become an electoral observer in El Salvador! The country is holding Municipal and Legislative elections on January 18, 2009 and Presidential elections on March 15, 2009. These elections are the most contested in recent Salvadoran history and for the first time in 20 years the FMLN, the largest opposition party, is predicted to win by all the polls. In this context the electoral process has been characterized by a highly polarized campaign, an increase in political violence, and the expectations of fraud, which are partly led by recent changes in the Electoral Code that take away safeguards to prevent it. Therefore it is imperative to have an independent national and international monitoring effort to ensure that the upcoming elections are free and fair.
The SHARE Foundation is organizing an observer delegation for both elections. Further information can be found at www.share-elsalvador.org/delegations/elections2009.htm.
Your comments and suggestions are always welcome.
How
can the Justice and Peace Office help you get involved?
T. Michael McNulty, SJ, editor
mmcnulty@cmsm.org
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