“Human trafficking is defined as the recruitment, harboring, transportation, provision, or obtaining of a person for labor or services through the use of force, fraud, or coercion, for the purpose of subjecting that person to involuntary servitude, peonage, debt bondage, or slavery.”  Trafficking Victims' Protection Reauthorization Act of 2003.

Many have no awareness of the extent of the human trafficking taking place in our world today.  The known numbers are overwhelming and one can only imagine the numbers of which we know nothing.  Even in the midst of the tsunami tragedy reports of the abducting and selling and offering of the children came to our attention.  Those who prey upon the innocent have no qualms of conscience.

Trafficking of human persons preys on the most vulnerable members of the human family, violating their most basic rights, subjecting them to degradation and misery, and at risk from the deadly disease of HIV-AIDS. Every year traffickers through fraud, coercion, and outright kidnapping victimize an estimated 700,000 to four million people around the world. The overwhelming majority of victims are women and children. Trafficking often forces them into pornography, prostitution, and other forms of exploitation. Trafficked persons are subjected to terrible mental and physical abuse, slavery, and torture. Prostitution and the sex industry are particularly high in countries where military troops are amassed.

Therefore we, Dominican Promoters of Peace and Justice  recommend:

• That we continue to educate ourselves as well as our congregations/provinces on the issue.

• That we would form a working group of justice promoters to co-ordinate information and encourage action on the trafficking issue.

• That we share resources within the justice network.

• That we, as Dominicans, be in collaboration with appropriate groups (for example those who work in opposition to the legalization of prostitution.).

• That we continue our awareness and support of Dominican efforts at the United Nations on the issue.

 

 

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