Pope Francis Quotes

Human trafficking is a scourge, a crime against the whole of humanity. It is time to join forces and work together to free its victims and to eradicate this crime that affects all of us, from individual families to the worldwide community.

Human trafficking is a human tragedy. It's an outrage against any decent people.

Human trafficking is a crime against humanity. We must unite our efforts to free the victims and stop this increasingly aggressive crime which threatens not only individuals but the basic values of society.

It ought to concern every person, because it is a debasement of our common humanity. It ought to concern every community, because it tears at our social fabric. It ought to concern every business, because it distorts markets. It ought to concern every nation, because it endangers public health and fuels violence and organized crime. I’m talking about the injustice, the outrage, of human trafficking, which must be called by its true name - modern slavery.

Modern slavery - be it bonded labor, involuntary servitude, or sexual slavery - is a crime and cannot be tolerated in any culture, community, or country ... [It] is an affront to our values and our commitment to human rights.

When people think of slavery, they think of an era from the distant past. Grainy photographs from Civil War times. And yet it goes on.

Child slavery is a crime against humanity. Humanity itself is at stake here. A lot of work still remains, but I will see the end of child labor in my lifetime.

Slavery is illegal everywhere, but it exists all over the world.

Modern day slavery is the great tragedy of our time and the U.S. cannot turn a blind eye to it on our soil or another nation's.

Human trafficking is a modern form of slavery. It is a scourge for humanity, and America must project its values and protect vulnerable persons.

Imagine having all of your freedoms taken away, being forced to work against your will, and constantly living under the threat of violence - in short, being forced to live as a slave. Sadly, this situation is a reality for millions of children, women, and men each year as part of the global human trafficking industry.

The buying and selling of women, girls and boys is a frightening modern day form of slavery that must be stopped.

So enormous, so dreadful, so irremediable did the [slave] trade's wickedness appear that my own mind was completely made up for abolition. Let the consequences be what they would: I from this time determined that I would never rest until I had effected its abolition.

The factor that makes people extremely vulnerable to enslavement is the lack of the rule of law.

On this International Day for the Abolition of Slavery let us reaffirm the inherent dignity of all men, women and children. And let us redouble our efforts to build societies in which slavery truly is a term for the history books.

It surprises people that there's actually a very large number of slaves in the world today-our best estimate is 27 million. And that is defining a slave in a very narrow way; we're not talking about sweatshop workers or people who are just poor, we're talking about people who are controlled by violence, who cannot walk away, who are being held against their will, who are being paid nothing.

Talk of the abuses of slavery! Humbug! The thing itself is the essence of all abuse!

And who is responsible for this appalling child slavery? Everyone.

Wherever we've gone around the world, we've found quite significant gaps: the holy texts, no matter which one you turn to, has ambiguity in it around slavery. That, we knew, was being used as justification by slavers all over the world.

People-trafficking is modern day slavery. There are more slaves today than there were at the height of the slave trade.

We will make slavery history very soon. We will make child labor history very soon.

Twin relics of barbarism – polygamy and slavery.

It has been our experience, that free men are often seduced by sinister practices, enslaved, and transported, which can thus be prevented

It is a debasement of our common humanity that must be called by its true name, modern slavery …. When a woman is locked in a sweatshop, or trapped in a home as a domestic servant, alone and abused and incapable of leaving—that’s slavery.