Modern Slavery: What Can We Do?

Human trafficking is a silent emergency, in Southern Africa and throughout the world. Bishop Joseph Kizito of Aliwal North looks at modern slavery and how we can respond to it.

Human trafficking is the recruitment, transportation, transferring and harbouring of persons by use of threat or force or abuse of power by one person who has got control over another one.

Therefore, it is the buying and selling of human beings, for different reasons.

Mostly it is for prostitution, sexual exploitation, pornography, forced marriage, slave labour, domestic work, forced labour in agriculture and construction, organ harvesting, and as soldiers. Many are sold as child labourers. Most of the victims are young women and children.

That is a reality in our communities, and it affects the most vulnerable people in society. This scandalous industry is rightly known as modern-day slavery. People are seen as products to be used, violating their human rights and dignity.

Main causes of trafficking

There are several minor and major reasons why people fall prey to traffickers. People have lost hope in their governments and in the future. Young people are desperate for jobs, and they cannot see a better life for themselves. Poverty causes people to want to escape from it. Young people are promised luxury accommodations and payments, which, of course, never materialise. In pursuit of a better life than their hopeless situation, they fall for the false promises of human traffickers. Others are forced into being trafficked, sometimes even by relatives.

Our families are broken, so children end up being victims to the perpetrators and the consumers. At times young people are being rejected by their families or communities, due to poverty. Having no support system from families and communities exposes them to the traffickers. False friends may introduce them to the wrong people.

There is an increased individualistic and egocentric attitude among many modern families. Our African values of ubuntu are being forgotten. Young people do not want to live a simple lifestyle — and this puts them at risk.

And governments have little passion in safeguarding their young ones.

A life of fear

Those who have been trafficked often end up in faraway countries, without being able to communicate with their families or the outside world. They live in fear, especially when they have no passports or legal documents. They keep silent because they fear arrest. They are living a lonely, isolated life. They are forced to work long hours and in dangerous conditions.

The traffickers view these human beings as cheap products, to be used and disposed of.

By definition, human trafficking involves the use of violence, some of it brutal and including rape. People are kept in captivity, and end up physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually abused.

The perpetrators are invisible, and their victims are helpless, they cannot easily escape or move out once they find the truth.

The Christian response

Human trafficking is, in fact, a hidden industry, and it is shameful when people do not want to talk about it.

The Bible is clear that we are all created in the image of God, and this was out of his love. We are able to see that love in the human person (Genesis 1:26). Human trafficking, on the other hand, is an abuse that negates the dignity of each person by exposing a human being to humiliation, degradation and manipulation. It is evil to reduce a human person to a slave.

Human trafficking is a crime in law and morally an evil act. Pope Francis has called it “an open wound on the body of the society, it’s a scourge upon the body of Christ”.

What can the Church do? Isaiah’s plea “Let my people go free” (58:6-7) offers us some of the responses which we can apply in our actions. For example, Isaiah says that the oppressed must be set free, bread be shared with the hungry, shelter be given to the homeless, the naked be clothed. In other words, when there is no poverty, fewer people will fall into the clutches of their enslavers.

Call to action

Pope Francis has called on young people to be aware and not to fall into the hands of traffickers. In that light, I urge our dioceses and Caritas offices, Justice & Peace, and other Church departments of social action to offer awareness programmes to our youth. This can take the form of education programmes to all the people in our churches, especially in those countries and regions that are most vulnerable to human trafficking.

The Church can use its pastoral plan to protect its youth, especially girls and women. The Catholic Church has for a long time given shelter to those who have been trafficked. The open-door policy should be maintained. The call for networking with relevant NPOs and government departments should be encouraged. For example, those who are living near national borders should work with the security forces to stop traffickers before they cross into another country. Awareness should also be raised in families, schools, clubs and in the labour industry to stop the recruitment.

The Church must use its Small Christian Communities and sodalities to engage with the faithful to raise awareness by using our structures to educate the community. We should also be able to put some resources towards our offices which deal with human trafficking. The Church has to use a lot of networks, for example the legal fraternity, to offer help in court processes, when these arise.

There is a need to offer awareness to business people, engaging them to reflect on ethical dimensions. We have a role to play by providing them with values in business. Our Churches and the communities should not buy products made by those industries that use slave labour — goods that are cheap need to be questioned. But even famous global brands use slave labour in countries such as China.

We need to inform ourselves about who made the products we buy. We need a fair-trade model economy, and advocate for good working conditions and fair salaries. On that note, we in the Church should be the first to offer decent salaries, payments, and sound working conditions.

Be informed

The Church can offer information to young people before they depart from their countries of origin, in communities and through the advocacy of best practices through the various Catholic media. We call on families to become better parents by protecting their children against the traffickers.

The different bishops’ conferences have been working together on this human crisis. Even in each diocese and in parishes, there is a need to network. We can train social workers, lawyers, medical practitioners to try to stop human traffickers.

The Church has booklets with a lot of information to help local parishes. We need to work with other Churches in training personnel, so that we may have hands-on joint projects.

The Church can also assist with reintegration programmes for those who have escaped the clutches of their traffickers. We call on different people to provide new and better opportunities, by offering spiritual healing in the power of faith. We may offer space for trafficked people to talk about their stories. The Church can stand and listen to their stories. To that end, the Church has produced videos to help people tell their stories.

We pray to St Josephine Bakhita, a saint who herself was a trafficked slave (her story was told in the February 2021 issue of The Southern Cross). Every feast day of St Bakhita, February 8, we stand and say “No” to human trafficking.

Let us pray the prayer of Africa, so that God may bless its people, her children, to be able to put an end to this war. May the Lord wipe out hatred and grant all of us love and peace.

South African National Human Trafficking Hotline email hotline at or call 0800222777.

Visit A21, an organisation that exists to fight human trafficking

Bishop Joseph Kizito oversees the Migrants and Refugees Department of the Southern African Catholic Bishops’ Conference.