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The spiritual heroism of Mother Teresa
Can there be peace in the Holy Land?
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Church gets taxis in antislavery drive By MAndLA ZiBi
A
PRIEST blessed taxis, drivers and owners in Hartebeespoort, North West, in aid of the fight against human trafficking in South Africa. The ceremony was organised by the Counter Trafficking in Persons (CTIP), a department of the Southern African Catholic Bishops’ Conference as part of its “Taxis Against Human Trafficking” initiative. It coincided with a three-day conference on human trafficking in the area hosted by CTIP with the Leadership of Consecrated Life. “Because it is one the biggest movers of people around the country and the whole Southern African region, the taxi industry is a very important link in the fight against human trafficking,” said Sr Melanie O’Connor of CTIP. “The taxi campaign is a good opportunity to spread the message about human trafficking and to make taxi drivers and owners our allies in the fight against this scourge.” Sr O’Connor told of a taxi driver who noticed that a woman who used his taxi almost daily was accompanied by a different child each time. “He realised that something was wrong and contacted the police. The investigation ended up with the National Prosecuting Authority which discovered that the woman was a trafficker. She was arrested and convicted, and is now serving time in prison.” At the ceremony, Mgr Barney McAcleer blessed a number of taxis at the local taxi rank. The taxis belong to the Brits Local and Long Distance Taxi Association. The taxi men also received free CTIP-branded T-shirts, caps and stickers for their taxis. Hartebeespoort community leader Mmoni More said both drivers and owners are very enthusiastic about their role in combating human trafficking. “They realise that they are transporting and putting people in danger without being aware of it. So they grabbed with both hands this opportunity to learn and also create community awareness themselves,” she said. “The campaign also empowers drivers on what to do in the event of an actual case of trafficking. They can now call the toll free number and not have to disclose their identity.”
Mgr Barney McAleer with taxi drivers and owners who are commited to fighting human trafficking. According to reports, South Africa is a favoured destination for trafficked women and children between ages 13-23. Sr O’Connor insisted the problem is prevalent in South Africa. “The number of cases being reported suggests it is on the increase. The situation may in fact be far more chronic and severe than we know,” she warned. Issues that came up at the conference included the need for more funding and creating awareness especially in rural areas. “There is an assumption that people now know enough about human trafficking. This is dangerous. We need to intensify our efforts educating the youth especially. They are vulnerable and easily duped by the recruiters,” Sr O’Connor said. Hinting that many victims of human trafficking did not even know that they are victims of a crime, Sr O’Connor said the conference also highlighted the issue of abuse of culture and of culture itself as a potential distorter of reality. “The issue of ukuthwala, for instance, came up quite strongly at the conference. Children are exploited in a distorted net of culture. This includes an aberrant form of a customary practice used to bypass extensive and lengthy marriage rituals, but now reduced to outright abduction of young girls,” she said. She identified the Eastern Cape and the Umzimkulu area in KwaZulu-Natal as the hotspots in this form of trafficking. Sr O’Connor said the CTIP would continue engaging with other taxi associations around the country on the issue of human trafficking.
Pope Francis shows a drawing given by a child as he answers questions from journalists on his flight from the Greek island of Lesbos. The drawing was given by a child at the Moria refugee camp in Lesbos where the pope met 250 people. The pope concluded his visit by bringing 12 refugees from Greece to italy with him. (Photo: Paul Haring/CnS)
Pope’s refugees want to go home By Cindy Wooden
T
HE word “dream” is the one used most often by the six Syrian adults Pope Francis brought back to Italy with him from a refugee camp in Greece. The couples—who asked to be identified by only their first names, Hasan and Nour, Ramy and Suhila, Osama and Wafa—and their six children have enrolled in Italian language classes. All three families saw their homes bombarded in Syria and all three arrived in Greece from Turkey on overloaded rubber boats months ago. Being chosen from among thousands of refugees to come to Italy felt like “a dream”, said Wafa. Osama is dreaming of peace in his homeland. “We want peace in Syria so we can go home,” he told reporters outside the language and culture school run by the Catholic Sant’Egidio Community. In agreement with the Italian government, the Rome-based lay community, along with the Federation of Evangelical Churches in Italy, has been operating a “humanitarian corridor” for vulnerable Syrian refugees—the elderly, families with sick children, women travelling alone with their children. The Vatican asked Sant’Egidio to help it screen refugees in Greece and choose families that both the Greek and Italian governments would provide with the necessary
travel papers in time for the papal flight. Asked if his gesture was not really so small as to be insignificant, Pope Francis told reporters that people used to tell Bl Teresa of Kolkata that what she was doing was meaningless when there was an ocean of need in the world. “And she responded, ‘It’s a drop in the ocean, but after this drop, the ocean won’t be the same,’” the pope said. “I’ll respond the same way. It’s a little gesture. But all of us, men and women, must make these little gestures in order to extend a hand to those in need.” When asked what he thought of the head of the Catholic Church sponsoring three Muslim refugee families, Osama said, “Peace has no religion. If you think about it, we are all human.” Nour, an engineer who studied in France and hopes eventually to go there, responded to a similar question by saying, “No other religious leader in the world helped us like the pope did.” Her husband Hasan said: “We are Muslim and, unfortunately, our people did not deal with us like the pope did,” he said. Hasan and Nour decided to take their 2year-old son Riad and flee after they were stopped by members of the Islamic State. Hasan said he was told he must fight, “make jihad,” but “I didn’t want to kill anyone. I am an engineer, not a soldier, so I must escape from Syria.”—CNS
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