Vatican City, May 9, 2012 / 12:06 pm
A young English woman who was forced into a life of prostitution by a human trafficker lauded the Vatican for addressing the issue by hosting a recent conference.
“For me this is really important, this is a real first step to really shape how things can go moving forward especially for the Catholic community so this is an incredible day,” 29-year-old Sophie Hayes told CNA on May 8.
“The Catholic Church has a huge role to play as there are 1.8 billion Catholics across the world,” Hayes added, “which is really pivotal to make sure that with all of their networks and all of their support we can really make this a hostile place for traffickers but also really support the victims of trafficking.”
The United Nations defines human trafficking as “an act of recruiting, transporting, transferring, harboring or receiving a person through a use of force, coercion or other means, for the purpose of exploiting them.” They also estimate it to be the second most lucrative criminal enterprise globally after the illegal arms trade.