Resources for Educators: Human Trafficking
The seventh commandment forbids acts or enterprises that for any reason - selfish or ideological, commercial, or totalitarian—lead to the enslavement of human beings, to their being bought, sold and exchanged like merchandise, in disregard for their personal dignity. It is a sin against the dignity of persons and their fundamental rights to reduce them by violence to their productive value or to a source of profit. St. Paul directed a Christian master to treat his Christian slave “no longer as a slave but more than a slave, as a beloved brother . . . both in the flesh and in the Lord.” CCC 2414.
Church Documents:
- "Statement on Human Trafficking," People on the Move, Pontifical Council for the Pastoral Care of Migrants and Itinerant People (No. 105, December 2007).
- "Statement of Most Reverend Gerald R. Barnes Bishop of San Bernardino, California Chairman, USCCB Committee on Migration on Human Trafficking," United States Conference of Catholic Bishops Committee on Migration (September 2007).
Catholic Websites:
- "What is Human Trafficking," United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.
- Coalition of Catholic Organizations against Human Trafficking
Articles:
- Barbara Kralis, "Catholic Church fights human trafficking and slavery" (August 2006).
- "Religious Form Network Against Human Trafficking" (June 2009).
- "Catholic Social Teaching on Human Trafficking"
- Barbara Fraser, "Catholic Church takes aim at human trafficking" (August 2008).