HUMAN TRAFFICKING—A THEOLOGICAL REFLECTION

Ada was born in Albania and grew up under the Communist regime. At sixteen she became engaged. Her fiance told her he had a house and a good job in Italy and if they were married she could send money home to help her family. She traveled to Italy with him. But instead of the good life she expected she was sold and her fiance disappeared.

Her 'owner' forced her into prostitution and she was sent to many different parts of Italy. Often she was obliged to provide services for up to 20 clients in a 5-hour period. Ada spent seven years at this work, which she found degrading. She described it as 'dirty' and 'feeling treated like an animal' and 'unable to look anybody straight in the eye.' Asked if she ever considered taking her life she simply stretched out her scarred wrists with the words, 'enough said.'

Mara was an attractive young woman of 19 years of age when she was trafficked from Moldova. Lack of job opportunity in her own country motivated her to travel abroad in search of work. She had been told of great opportunities in Western Europe and when she was offered a job in a bar she jumped at the chance. However, Mara had been deceived. She was bought and sold by traffickers at least three times. She travelled by bus, boat, car, truck and plane, passing through Albania, Italy, France, England and eventually arrived in Ireland. Switching cars and modes of transport so often, being locked in houses and constantly guarded by her traffickers, she was completely disoriented and unable to even try to escape. She was imprisoned, subjected to beatings, starvation and rape. If she was uncooperative her family at home was threatened and she was told she would be passed on to more dangerous owners.

On arrival in Ireland, her passport and papers were taken from her and destroyed. She was passed to a Russian man who put her into a brothel. She was told she would do exactly as she was told or her family in Moldova would be killed. Receiving only shelter and food she had to work all day and frequently late into the night. She was constantly monitored and could not refuse to do anything she was asked by the men who frequented the brothel. Three months later she found she was pregnant and was told she was of no further use. She was left with nothing, no money, no place to stay, no contacts and hardly any English. Mara was warned she could trust no one and if she told her story, her family would be in danger and would be told that their daughter was now working in prostitution.

How did you feel on listening to these stories?

What did you find challenging or disturbing?

Why do you think trafficking is so prevalent?

What is it about the world we live in that makes it so easy to happen?

What challenges/images are surfacing for you?

What questions are emerging?

Scripture Reading: Isaiah 42:18-23
Extra Reading: Veritatis Splendor—Article 100; Catechism of the Catholic Church—Articles 2356, 2389, 2414; Populorum Progressio—Articles 47 & 49; Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church—Article 144.

ACTION: What can we do in our own country to address root causes? How do we ensure that traffickers face the consequences of their actions and that trafficked people are not treated as criminals?

(Stories from Regina Pacis Foundation, Italy and Ruhama, Ireland)

SUMMER IN BASRAH, IRAQ

The following is an e-mail I recelved recently from my nephew-in-law who is serving in Iraq. He gave me permission to share it with our readers.

—Betty Kenny, OSF, SISTERS ONLINE Project Manager

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Hello everyone,

I hope that this finds you well. I hope that you have all had a wonderful summer. I apologize for not sending out an e-mail earlier. It had been my intention to, but it seems that the summer has gotten away from me a bit.

As far as my summer, things have been busy (hence, my terrible lack of writing to all of you). Of course, on 30 June, we pulled back out of the cities here in Iraq, which was a tremendous day for all Iraqis, and one more step towards them being able to take over the reins of government completely. Everyone is cautiously optimistic on the progress that is being made by the security forces. Some are doing better than others, but as the "training wheels" come off they seem to be able to handle it. There are still going to be set backs and some "scraped knees", but things seem to be on the right path. The populace seems to be moving forward. Most welcome the U.S. partnership and think it is good for the security forces so that they can learn to more effectively provide security. Some areas have greater faith in their own security forces than others. It is an odd balancing act as all want us to leave as soon as possible, but they also want the security from the violence that has been provided. But if the trajectory that the Iraqis are on continues, that should happen. One telling sign is how many are beginning to view electricity, water, and garbage collection as top priorities as opposed to security. Not long ago, security was a top concern. But as that as improved, it has begun to fall on the priority list and others are rising.

The trash heaps in this country are legendary. In the city of Basrah, former playgrounds were piled high with garbage. Children would play in and around it. Our civil support (military) and provincial reconstruction (State Dept.) teams have provided money through special programs to help clean the city up. The first phase has completed and they are now moving into other areas. The provincial governor is very appreciative of the help that they have received from the American people in helping to revitalize their city (the 2nd largest in the country after Baghdad, and, due to the ports to the Persian Gulf, possibly the most important economically).

Having said all of that, I should point out that this applies almost entirely to the southern 9 provinces of the country (everything south of Baghdad, not including the province of Baghdad itself). Things are fairly quiet in our Area of Operations (AO). The above does not apply as much to the north. While the Sunni/Shia rift seems to be healing, the Arab/Kurd region is the next area that needs to be solved. Plus, al-Qaeda still has some operators to the north, although they are greatly diminished. Iranian influence in the south is a bit troublesome, although mostly rejected (Iraqi Shia consider themselves Arabs first and tend to dislike the Persians . . .
a big reason for the rejection of the Iranian influenced ISCI party in last January's elections) except for the most ardent extremists.

Late July and August were extremely busy for me as I was busy writing two Annexes to our next plan for future operations here in our AO. It was a long, hard slog, sitting in front of my computer writing all day. I ended up with one annex containing 41 documents (various appendices, tabs and enclosures). Thankfully, the other was much shorter, with only 10 documents. Anyway, I got through it and got it published, providing guidance to all of our subordinate units on where to go from here to continue to meet our commander's (and, ultimately, the President's) intent.

As far as the weather goes for here, it was Hot, Hot, Hot. Not that that surprises any of you. To give you an idea of the heat, we actually have air conditioners here for our building, whose sole reason for existence is to cool the main air conditioning units. We all find it pretty funny that the air conditioners need air conditioners. I need to make sure I get a picture of that one. One other weather note is that in the far south here in Basrah, we get to deal with something else from time to time, humidity.
Yes, humidity here in the desert. Not typical, but we experienced oppressive humidity back in late August. Normally the winds come out of the north (aka, The Shamal). That brings hot, dry air in from the desert to the north. However, for 7-10 days here, the winds shifted to coming from the south. Those of you who know your geography well, know that the Persian Gulf is to our south. So that meant lots of hot, moist air coming up on us. Humidity, which is usually in the 8-10% range, shot up to about 40-50%. The heat index went way up as well. On a day when the temperature hit 110, the heat index hit 130. That was not fun. I think there may even have been a few days of heat indexes of 140 or higher. Even the paper in the office just seemed to soak up the moisture. And the evenings didn't ever cool off those days either. Not fun.

Well, I've probably gone on long enough for now.

Take care!

Major Brian Matzek