Human Trafficking

In the days leading up to the Feb. 13 game in Inglewood’s new SoFi Stadium, local authorities have warned of coming sting operations and criminal penalties associated with sex trafficking.

“The thousands of women and girls who are trafficked every year denounce the dramatic consequences of relational models based on discrimination and submission,” the pope said, “and it is not an exaggeration — there are thousands of them!”

St. Bakhita, who was sold into slavery as a child, is the patron saint of the International Day of Prayer and Awareness Against Human Trafficking, which is marked on her Feb. 8 feast day.

They have home countries but live literally adrift, becoming strangers to all nations. Now, because of the coronavirus pandemic, hundreds of thousands of these itinerant workers also are trapped.

Clergy, women religious and laypeople pledged to strengthen existing networks and build new partnerships to fight human trafficking in West Africa during a five-day conference.

Catholic bishops have warned the British government that post-Brexit plans to tighten the asylum system would drive more immigrants into the hands of human trafficking gangs.

“No one shall be held in slavery or servitude,” the U.N. declared in the fourth article of its 1948 landmark Universal Declaration of Human Rights, issued three years after the international body’s founding.

The pandemic-related economic downturn, business closures, increase in global unemployment and reduced incomes have contributed to greater human trafficking of children, women, domestic workers and migrants without legal status.