Talitha Kum, one of RENATE’s most prevalent partners in the fight against human trafficking, have published their annual report reflecting on the organisation’s progress throughout 2021.

The reach and importance of Talitha Kum’s work to help victims of trafficking and to  prevent instances of trafficking and exploitation are made evident in the reflections of the report, which present several significant and quantified achievements.

The reports introduction states:

“Despite the Covid-19 pandemic made it more difficult to combat trafficking,  in 2021  Talitha Kum recorded a numerical and qualitative growth  in its activities compared to the previous year :  

• present in 92 countries
• with 55 national networks (5 more than the previous year)
• 6,039 people actively involved in anti-trafficking actions on all continents.
• 336,958 people reached by Talitha Kum all over the world
• of these, 258,549 benefited from prevention activities
• 19,993 are victims and survivors supported by the network;
• 58,416 people involved in networking, training and  capacity-building activities .”

Read the full annual report

Sisters from the Bakhita Section for Counteracting Contemporary Forms of Slavery and Aid to Victims met on June 25, 2022 in Częstochowa.

The meeting was attended by: Sr. Bożena Noga – President of the Section, Sr. Anna Bałchan, Sr. Barbara Zawiła, Sr. Czesława Morkowska, Sr. Sylwia Prokopowicz, Sr. Goretti Nowak, Sr. Leonarda Klim, Sr. Katarzyna Grunwald and Sr. Gabriela Hasiura.

The meeting began with a prayer to St. Sister Bakhita, taken from the document “Pastoral Orientations on Human Trafficking”, which the Vatican has issued in cooperation with episcopates of various countries.

At the beginning of the meeting, the Sisters shared this year’s activities as part of the Section’s goals. Sr. Katarzyna presented a report prepared for the Conference of Major Superiors of Female Religious Congregations. Sr. Gabriela Hasiura shared her experience at the RENATE working board meeting, which took place in May in the Netherlands. She also talked about the upcoming meeting of all members of the RENATE network in Fatima in November this year and establishing contacts with the International Justice Mission, operating in many countries worldwide. Sister Bożena Noga, on the other hand, shared information on cooperation with Talitha Kum, International Network Against Human Trafficking caring for persons wounded by exploitation and acting against inequalities caused by economic and cultural systems.

In addition, by reading the signs of the times, the Sisters from the Bakhita Network were actively involved in helping women and children, and sometimes also entire families – refugees from Ukraine, sensitized to search for possible victims of trafficking among them.

These are the following forms of assistance undertaken by sisters:

• sheltered housing
• information actions to protect against trade – warning posters at railway stations
• volunteering
• appealing to the Minister of Justice with a request to react to the phenomenon of trafficking in human beings at the borders
• making recruitment difficult for traders by creating car registration procedures (Przemyśl)
• work in the support network in local communities
• helping people travelling by train (Kutno)
• employing people from Ukraine
• receiving children from Ukraine in institutions and surrounding them and their mothers with special care 
• therapeutic meetings for children and mothers
• prophylactic actions Woman to Woman
• assistance in acquiring professional qualifications (cook, kitchen assistant, teacher’s help) – Stowarzyszenie PoMOC
• learning the Polish language
• participation in the project “Tenda di Abramo” Italy – a six-month relocation project in Italy
• support for Polish families hosting refugees
• integration meetings for people from Ukraine and Poland
• holiday integration trips
• helping women with transport, departure to Italy and Spain
• short-term stays in our religious houses
• material assistance, collections
• humanitarian transports to Ukraine

We are aware that the war triggered a lot of sensitivity and willingness to help and at the same time intensified destructive processes, including trafficking in human beings. We want to take a step forward to prepare ourselves to work with victims in this part of the world. Hence the idea of ​​organizing training on cultural differences and setting boundaries wisely: “Cultural differences – my world is not your world” on September 24-25, 2022 in Częstochowa for nuns and lay people serving among refugees who want to learn about cultural differences to help more effectively.

Download the full guidance document

The Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health (RCPCH) has published new guidelines on the subject of Child Modern Slavery and Human Trafficking, aimed to assist paediatricians in identifying and helping victims of trafficking in the course of their work.

Introducing the new document, the RCPCH states:

“In 2020, over 10,000 potential victims of modern slavery and human trafficking (MSHT) were identified in the United Kingdom, half of whom claimed they were exploited as children1 . Due to the clandestine nature of these crimes, the count of all victims is likely to be significantly higher and it is anticipated that MSHT will escalate in the wake of the economic and societal disruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and mitigating policies.2

Forms of exploitation include, but are not limited to:

• Labour exploitation
• Criminal exploitation
• Sexual exploitation
• Domestic servitude 
• Financial exploitation
• Other forms including forced marriage

These practice guidelines aim to introduce MSHT as a significant health and public health concern, intersecting with many socially-located causes of health inequalities and inequity including poverty, lack of education and opportunity, racism and gender-based discrimination.

They also aim to provide guidance on the role of paediatricians in addressing child MSHT. This is key as victims and survivors of MSHT are a particularly vulnerable group of children and young people who may go unrecognised and be misunderstood by health, social care, foster care, education, immigration and police services. They may also be wrongly criminalised for actions they were forced or manipulated to take during their exploitation. This is particularly the case for criminally-exploited children and young people, including victims within the ‘County Lines’ illegal drugs networks.

Good practice recommendations

• Paediatricians will encounter victims and survivors of child MSHT and must familiarise themselves with the signs of MSHT in children and young people (CYP) and the ways in which they present to healthcare settings.
• Paediatricians must follow local safeguarding procedures and referral pathways to dedicated safeguarding professionals and other agencies (most importantly social care and the police), where MSHT is suspected.
• Paediatricians are expected to engage their existing trauma-informed care skillset at all stages of communication, healthcare and safeguarding provision.
• Paediatricians must remain alert to MSHT activity in their local area.
• Paediatricians are strongly encouraged to attend specialist training on the topic of child MSHT.”

Download the full guidance document

More resources from RCPCH

On the 25th of May, Lithuania marks the International Day of Missing Children.

Commemorating this day aims not only to sympathise with those whose children have gone missing, but also to promote the prevention of this phenomenon.

We invite you to visit the sculpture “Mommy…!” next to the Lithuanian and Children’s Youth Centre, to tie ribbons on the branches of the trees with your children, and to take time to talk to your children about the difficulties they are facing, to listen to what they have to say, and to inform them about the dangers of being away from home. 

The day was chosen  because of a story that shocked the United States when, on 25 May 1979, six-year-old Ethan Patz disappeared  without a trace on his way to school at a bus stop just a couple of blocks from his home. On the initiative of the  Missing Persons Families Support Centre, the Seimas of the Republic of Lithuania added this day to the list of  commemorative days in 2006. The European Union has a single 116 000 hotline for reporting missing children  around the clock. This hotline is administered in Lithuania by the Missing Persons Families Support Centre  (hereinafter – the Centre), which is a member of the international organisations Amber Alert Europe and the  International Centre for Missing and Exploited Children (USA). In 2018, the Centre, together with the US Embassy,  the Ministry of the Interior of the Republic of Lithuania, the Lithuanian Police Department and Facebook, launched  Amber Alert Facebook, the first emergency child tracing system in Lithuania. 

Child disappearance is a real, dynamic and growing problem both in Lithuania and across Europe. Around 250 000 children go missing in Europe every year. According to the Missing Persons Register, there will be 2,251 cases in Lithuania in 2020 and 1,575 cases in 2021. In the first quarter of 2022, 427 cases. Missing Persons Families  Support Centre, in cooperation with the General Emergency Centre (112), answered 196 calls on hotline 116 000 in  2020, compared to 190 calls in 2021. On 24th of February in 2022 people are fleeing the country in large numbers  since Russia started the war in Ukraine. According to the administrators of the 116 000 hotline in Ukraine, the NGO Magnolia, 2 100 children have disappeared since the war began. And this number is growing every day. 

There are different reasons for the disappearance of children. Children who are missing, unsupervised or constantly running away from home can become an easy prey for criminals. They are at risk of becoming victims of trafficking and sexual exploitation. 

More information 

Missing Persons Families Support Centre 

Contact for enquiries:  Arūnė Bernatonytė centras2@missing.lt or +370 670 52725. 

Prevention video “Every minute is precious” (1:00 min): 

To protect people fleeing the war in Ukraine, the EU Anti-Trafficking
Coordinator together with EU agencies and countries developed a
tailor-made Common Anti-Trafficking Plan, to address the risks of
trafficking in human beings and support potential victims.

Read more

The French Collective “Together against human trafficking” has prepared an advocacy letter in the context of the war in Ukraine. 

Welcomed in many countries, people fleeing war are at risk of falling prey to human traffickers. In France, the context of an arrival of people fleeing Ukraine has triggered greater media attention on the issue of the exploitation of people in a migration situation. It also triggered stronger coordination between institutions and associations, French and international, in order to propose tools for raising public awareness on the issue to prevent trafficking, better identify victims, support them and combat the phenomenon.

Together against trafficking in human beings presented the following important points to be taken into account in public policies in the context of the Ukrainian conflict, so that the current experience can benefit all migrants, regardless of their age or nationality.

• Pay attention to all forms of trafficking. Adopt a human rights
  approach
• Protect displaced people of all nationalities
• Create a national hotline dedicated to human trafficking
• Inform about the dangers of the internet
• Support those who host displaced people
• Educate hotel staff
• Give the tools to volunteers and professionals in contact with
  migrants
• Coordinate action
• Offer psychological support to displaced people
• Recognition of the rights of displaced people
• Protect especially women and children
• Fight against all forms of exploitation of minors
• Informing about the risks of surrogacy

Click to read the newsletter in French

Link to archive of newsletters

The RENATE Working Board are pleased to announce the names of the newly elected Core  group.

This election took place at the Working Board meeting 8-13 May 2022, in Ravenstein,  the Netherlands, following a prayerful discernment process.  

The following named members of the new RENATE core group will formally assume office at  the RENATE General Assembly, in Fatima, Portugal, 13-19 November 2022: 

1. Mrs. Ardita Keraj Korriku (Albania). 
2. Ms. Ivonne van de Kar (the Netherlands).  
3. Judit Knab, CJ, (Hungary).  
4. Mr. Jakup Sabedini (Kosovo).  
5. Mrs. Joanna Terzieva (Bulgaria).  
6. Marie Power, HFB, (UK).  
7. Ms. Rania Ioakeimidou (Greece).  

In the meantime, the new Core group will convene to elect, from within their membership,  three colleagues who will form the RENATE Presidential team. Together, the New Core  Group and within this group, the new Presidential Team, will draw upon their collective  gifts and talents to implement the new mandate coming forth from the Assembly of RENATE  in November 2022. 

We heartily congratulate the team who, we know, will bring a collective wealth of experience to the role. RENATE invites your prayers for this new team that they may be filled with fortitude and wisdom as they prepare for this new call to mission as the  upcoming leadership team of RENATE. 

Read the full newsletter HERE

A new Bulletin by the Vatican’s COVID-19 Commission and Migrants & Refugees Section has been published:

Flaminia Vola, Regional Coordinator in Western Europe for the Vatican Migrants & Refugees Section, emphasises the prevalence of exploitation and poor treatment of migrant workers in her introduction:

“Migrant workers often have to accept unsafe and unfair work and must live in precarious conditions. They are exposed to various forms of slavery and lack a welfare system protecting them. They are among the victims of the widespread “culture of waste”, which – Pope Francis reminds us – is at the origin of the inequality that afflicts the world.

In this Bulletin, we will look at solutions that might help build a new future for work, offering decent and dignified working conditions, in which the most vulnerable are not left behind. A future that strives to provide proper work everywhere, for those staying in their homeland and for newcomers too. A world where all workers are treated equally, without discrimination or exploitation and with due regard for their rights.”

“If we really want to promote those whom we assist, 

                                we must involve them and make them agents in their own redemption.”
Pope Francis, WDMR 2020

The full bulletin can be accessed in 5 languages in our library here