During this Jubilee of Hope, a particular focus of the Church in the Diocese of Harrisburg is one of drawing attention the scourge of human trafficking. The effort was introduced with a pastoral letter by Bishop Timothy Senior – “Setting Captives Free: A Pastoral Letter on Human Trafficking” – issued on December 29, 2024.
Among the steps the bishop outlined regarding what people of faith can do to help victims and shed light on human trafficking are calls for prayer and fasting, turning away from pornography, and learning more about ways to address this evil in our midst.
And on Monday evening, February 24, more than 200 people turned out in response to the call to become informed and get engaged, attending the Human Trafficking Awareness event hosted at the Diocesan Center in Harrisburg.
“Your presence here tonight is a source of hope for those who don’t even know that we’re meeting here this evening and discussing this issue but are nevertheless suffering beyond our sight and, in some cases, without us realizing it, suffering within our sight,” Bishop Senior told the crowd.
“Growing in our understanding of it is step one,” he said.
The event was hosted by the Diocesan Office for Life and Dignity within the Secretariat for Catholic Life and Evangelization. Following an opening prayer service, speakers highlighted the risk factors and industries of concern for human trafficking; Church teaching on the dignity of the human person; and statewide legislation aimed at supporting victims and battling the scourge.
“We need to come together, wherever possible, to challenge and confront the economic and criminal mechanisms that profit from trafficking and exploitation – Pope Francis says this as well,” Bishop Senior said in his opening remarks. “We must listen with compassion wherever we can to the stories of those who have experienced this.”
“It is a very complex problem, and it requires global responses. But we’re here today and can begin here to consider what can we do locally? What can we begin to do? How can we grow in our awareness of this and together create the conditions where trafficking and exploitation will be banned and that the light will banish the darkness in every circumstance?”
The Church’s Role
Felicitas Brugo Onetti, Human Trafficking Education and Outreach Coordinator for the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, opened her presentation with a sobering statistic.
“Globally, an estimated 49.6 million people are living in a situation of human trafficking at any given moment. In the United States, that number is an estimated 1 million people,” she said, defining human trafficking as “the use of force, fraud or coercion to induce someone into labor or sexual exploitation.” It is a federal crime in the United States.
In her presentation, “The Role of the Church in Combatting Human Trafficking,” Brugo Onetti underscored Church teaching on the dignity of the human person, the Church’s responsibility in battling against the worldwide atrocity, risk factors for potential victims and tactics used by perpetrators.
On the International Day of Prayer against Human Trafficking – observed by the Church on February 8, the feast day of St. Josephine Bakhita – Pope Francis called human trafficking “a horrific crime against the basic dignity and rights of the human person. All efforts must be expended to end it.”
“Human trafficking is violence! The violence suffered by every woman and girl is an open wound in the body of Christ, in the body of all humanity, it is a deep wound that also affects each one of us,” he said.
The Catholic Church’s call to combat this evil is rooted in Catholic Social Teaching, Burgo Onetti said.
“Catholic Social Teaching upholds the dignity of every person. Catholic Social Teaching also emphasizes the dignity of work as a reflection of human worth and a means of participating in God’s creation,” she said. “It also upholds the preferential option for the poor, which emphasizes the priorities and the needs of marginalized and impoverished people. It emphasizes the full continuum of the pro-life ethic, calling for a pro-life commitment that upholds the dignity and rights of every person. Combating human trafficking is a vital part of this continuum.”
Speaking on risk factors and industries of concern, Brugo Onetti said that “Where there is poverty, where there is vulnerability, perpetrators are always preying upon that.”
She pointed to examples, including sexual exploitation found in pornography, prostitution, illicit massage parlors and exotic dancing. Labor exploitation can be found in assembly work, hospitality services and nail salons.
“One thing we can do is consider the role we play as consumers of food and clothing,” she said, encouraging the purchase of fair-trade goods like coffee and chocolate.
Physical signs of potential victims include evidence of control over them, inability to leave their home or speak for themselves, and medical neglect. Perpetrators frequently use such tactics as abuse, threats, withholding income, restricting contact with others, and moving the victim from place to place.
Brugo Onetti underscored the prevalence of online sexual exploitation and the threat it poses even within the confines of someone’s home.
“Seventy-seven percent of U.S. Citizens had a social network profile, with a seven percent growth from the previous year. By 2020, there were approximately 223 million social media users in the U.S., making up around 80 percent of the total population,” she noted.
“Mobile devices have led to increased online usage among minors and young adults, with 92 percent of teens going online daily, and 24 percent saying they are online ‘almost constantly,’” she said.
Citing 2022 statistics from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, more than 32 million reports of child sex abuse material was reported, and more than 99.5 percent of the reports was child pornography.
“This underscores the need for parents to be vigilant about their child’s online activity, and the fact that human trafficking can happen anywhere,” Brugo Onetti said.
Statewide Efforts and Challenges
In the second half of the event, Eric Failing, the Executive Director of the Pennsylvania Catholic Conference (PCC), spoke of legislative efforts and bills the PCC has introduced and supported to help combat human trafficking and support its victims.
The PCC is the public affairs arm of the state’s Catholic bishops. It lobbies for public policy based on its alignment with Church teaching.
“The more I learned about human trafficking, the more I became nauseous. The more I became nauseous, the angrier I got,” Failing said. “This is just people taking advantage of other people. I always thought human trafficking was ‘snatching and grabbing someone,’ but when I learned it was more insidious…it just really upset me and I wanted to know how to stop it. It was only by understanding how these traffickers think that I thought I could make recommendations to the bishops about how we can combat it.”
One of the pieces of legislation supported by the PCC involves support for victims, to ensure that people rescued from trafficking situations are provided with opportunities for education, counseling and medical help. Another bill introduced by the PCC charges traffickers with jail time, and a third bill involves enrolling imprisoned human traffickers in classes to understand its evils.
Failing said human trafficking is a pro-life issue.
“Seventy-one percent of victims have had at least one pregnancy. Twenty-one percent have had five or more pregnancies. They become abortions,” he said.
He also stressed that victims are not just those in illicit massage parlors or prostitution rings. “One of the number one area for human trafficking is pornography. People who have looked at pornography online – especially the amateur stuff – 99 percent of people in them are being trafficked. We’re helping traffickers do that by looking at things we’re not supposed to be looking at to begin with,” he said.
“There’s a lack of education about how bad human trafficking really is, and so we’re still combating it. Education is absolutely key,” Failing said.
Pilgrims of Hope
The Holy Father said, “Let us walk together as pilgrims of hope against human trafficking,” Bishop Senior said of Pope Francis’ message for the International Day of Prayer against Human Trafficking. “I can’t help but think that all of us here tonight are doing just that. We are pilgrims of hope, hope that this reality can change.”
“The pope tells us to ‘lift our eyes to Christ, who is always our hope in every circumstance.’ There is no darkness in this world that is greater than the love and mercy of Jesus Christ, the light that shines in the darkness, the light that banishes the darkness. There are then, flames of light that together can illuminate the light,” the bishop continued.
Expressing gratitude for the presence of so many concerned people at the awareness event, Bishop Senior encouraged them to keep moving forward with prayer, knowledge and vigilance.
“There is always the risk that we can become saturated by problems in our world. Everywhere we look, we have these incredible problems. That can drive us into ourselves and we can become very apathetic. We mustn’t. Let’s not let that happen,” he said.
For more information on the Church’s efforts against human trafficking, visit www.pacatholic.org and https://www.usccb.org/topics/anti-trafficking-program. Read Bishop Senior’s pastoral letter, which contains links to more resources, at https://www.hbgdiocese.org/humantrafficking/.
(Photos by Chris Heisey, The Catholic Witness.)
By Jen Reed, The Catholic Witness
