Ending Slavery In Our Time

In an address at the Human Rights Council in Geneva on Sept. 11, Archbishop Silvano Tomasi, the Holy See’s permanent observer at the United Nations, described the tragic forms of contemporary slavery, such as “massive kidnappings and sale of young girls under the false premises of religious teachings as is done, for example, by Boko Haram in Nigeria or by the so-called Islamic State group in northern Iraq.” Archbishop Tomasi pointed out that “some 250,000 children are forcibly conscripted and even used as ‘human shields’ in the front lines of armed conflicts.” He added, however, that “other, subtler forms of slavery” also deserve attention, “including the 5.7 million children who are victims of forced and bonded labor, domestic servitude, early, forced and servile marriage...and caste-based forms of slavery, which affect the lives of so many and are not confined to developing and poor countries.”