Presentation Of International Day of Prayer Against Trafficking in Children and Adolescents

Suor Gabriella Bottani
Coordinator of Talitha Kum – UISG USG
International Network of Consecrated Life Against Trafficking in Persons
Coordinator of the Committee World Day of Prayer and Awareness against Trafficking in Persons

The programme for 2017 introduces a new element. In addition to the proposed prayer and reflection it invites us to focus on one specific aspect of the vast and complex world of human trafficking: the trafficking of boys, girls and adolescents with the specific slogan: They are children! Not slaves!

Rationale: In the world, the percentage of children among the victims of trafficking is growing. According to the latest official UN figures Report UNODC 2014) one victim out of three is under 18. The continent with the highest percentage of child victims of trafficking in relation to the total is Africa, with a rate close to 68%. The world's children are trafficked for sexual exploitation, domestic servitude, forced marriage, illegal adoption, forced labor, organ trafficking, begging, criminal practices, witchcraft, criminal practices (child soldiers, drug trafficking). Many children are born slaves, slaves in households held in debt bondage as in the mines of Ghana.
Every two minutes, a child introduced to sexual exploitation. There are about 30 million children who have lost their childhood through sexual exploitation over the last thirty years. More than 200 million girls and boys work, of which 73 million are under 10 years of age. Every year 22,000 boys and girls die in work accidents.

Enslaving children is an aggravated crime 
• The cruelty of the violence against children: Consideration of the torments suffered by boys and girls raped, used as sex workers and dehumanised, should give rise to a determination to give greater protection
• The symbolic dimension: Boys and girls are the future symbol of dreams of life for humanity, freedom of life, generative otherness that does not stop at an impromptu action but that requires an accompanying process so that there can be life …. life in abundance.