The Vatican will host a conference focused on the implementation of these guidelines in early April.
Targeting Demand
More attention needs to be placed on those consumers who drive the demand for human trafficking, in addition to the traffickers themselves who supply it, according to the Vatican office.
"People who generate the demand share real responsibility for the destructive impact of their behaviour on other human persons, and for the moral values violated in the process," the guide states, noting that "the buying of so-called sexual services, in all forms including pornography, internet based cyber-sex, strip clubs and erotic dancing venues, is a serious offence against human dignity and human integrity."
The guide goes on to recommend that states consider "criminalizing those who take advantage of prostitution or of other uses of sexual exploitation provided by those who have been trafficked."
Last year, Pope Francis expressed a similar sentiment in his World Day of Prayer address, "If there are so many young women victims of trafficking who end up on the streets of our cities, it is because many men here - young, middle-aged, elderly - demand these services and are willing to pay for their pleasure. I wonder then, is the principal cause of trafficking really the traffickers? I believe the principal cause is the unscrupulous selfishness of the many hypocrites in our world. Of course, arresting traffickers is an obligation of justice. But the true solution is the conversion of hearts, cutting off demand in order to dry out the market."
Ethical Supply Chains
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The Vatican is calling for an ethical assessment of both business models and consumption, particularly in the industries such as agriculture, fishing, construction and mining where human trafficking is deeply embedded.
"The Church encourages both sides of the commercial relationship – entrepreneurs who provide and end-users who consume – to engage in this ethical reflection and then to make the changes that are called for," the guide states.
"Purchasing is always a moral – and not simply economic – act," Benedict XVI wrote in Caritas in Veritate in 2009. "Hence the consumer has a specific social responsibility, which goes hand-in-hand with the social responsibility of the enterprise."
On a broader level, the Vatican office recommends that countries implement legislation that requires "all companies, particularly those working transnationally and outsourcing in developing countries, to invest in the transparency and accountability of their supply chains."
Adding that there needs to be special and intense prosecution of organized crime engaged in people smuggling and trafficking nationally and transnationally, along with prosecution of connivance by local and national authorities."
Ways of Hope
Along with the guidebook, a compilation of all of Pope Francis' teachings on migrants, refugees, and human trafficking entitled "Lights on the Ways of Hope" was also released in hardcover and online in English and other languages. The searchable digital version will continue to be updated as the pope comments on human trafficking in the future.