UN World Day Against Trafficking

Santa Marta Group called on leaders across the world to step up their efforts to combat human trafficking on the United Nations World Day Against Trafficking (Sunday 30 July).

This crime that turns people into commodities must be stopped. Up to 50 million people are trafficked worldwide and ongoing conflict, political instability, environmental degradation and economic hardship exacerbated by the COVID pandemic have increased the number of vulnerable people on whom organised criminal gangs prey.

SMG believes that systemic change is necessary to reduce demand and it is in the interests of businesses and governments to ensure clean supply chains and the enforcement of legislation against human trafficking, which continues to take place all around us. SMG echoes the words of Pope Francis “"Human trafficking disfigures dignity. Exploitation and subjugation limit freedom and turn people into objects to use and discard. And the system of trafficking profits from the injustice and wickedness that oblige millions of people to live in conditions of vulnerability.”

"An economy without human trafficking is an economy with market rules that promote justice, not exclusive special interests. Human trafficking finds fertile ground in the approach of neo-liberal capitalism, in the deregulation of markets aimed at maximising without ethical limits, without social limits, without environmental limits.

Trafficking is a terrible reality, affecting too many people: children, women, workers..., so many exploited people.”