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).

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).

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