P R A Y I N G W I T H T H E C H U R C H
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INTENTION : |
That the international community may be ever more aware of the urgent duty to bring an end to the trafficking in human beings.
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The trade in human persons constitutes a shocking offence against human dignity and a grave violation of fundamental human rights. Already Vatican II had pointed to "slavery, prostitution, the selling of women and children, and disgraceful working conditions as infamies which poison human society, debase their perpetrators and constitute a supreme dishonour to the Creator" (GS 27). Such situations are an affront to fundamental values which are shared by all cultures and peoples, values rooted in the very nature of the human person.
The alarming increase in the trade in human beings, while associated with the process of globalization, also presents a serious threat to the security of individual nations and international justice. Who can deny that the victims of these crimes are often the poorest and defenceless members of the human family, the "least" of our brothers and sisters?
These disturbing tendencies while contributing to the trade in human beings, also manifest a growing tendency to detach freedom from the moral law and thus reduce the rich mystery of the human person to a mere commodity. In responding to this modern plague attention needs to be paid to the deeper causes of the increased "demand" which fuels the market for human slavery.
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