{"id":96130,"date":"2020-10-16T17:31:17","date_gmt":"2020-10-16T21:31:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/?p=96130"},"modified":"2020-10-16T17:32:06","modified_gmt":"2020-10-16T21:32:06","slug":"church-times-churches-must-challenge-the-systems-that-cultivate-modern-slavery-webinar-in-wales-hears","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/?p=96130","title":{"rendered":"(Church Times) Churches must challenge the systems that cultivate modern slavery, webinar in Wales hears"},"content":{"rendered":"

Church communities and people of faith must challenge the systems and structures that have allowed modern slavery<\/a> to become the fastest-growing crime around the world, a panel of international experts and activists told a webinar hosted by the Church in Wales<\/a> in advance of Modern Slavery Day on Sunday.<\/p>\n

The speakers concluded that it had to be about more than raising awareness of something in which services and products used every day were implicated: manufacturing supply chains, casual labour, and sexual and criminal exploitation. Statutory systems were fragmented and not working well, despite the Modern Slavery Act and the introduction of the National Referral Mechanism, they said; \u201cpitifully small\u201d numbers of perpetrators were being brought to justice.<\/p>\n

An estimated 40.3 million men, women, and children worldwide are estimated to be trapped in modern slavery, among them potentially up to 136,000 victims in the UK alone. \u201cWe are losing the battle,\u201d the former Bishop of Derby, Dr Alastair Redfern, founder of the C of E\u2019s Clewer Initiative on modern slavery, said. He described it as \u201cthe sharp end of inequality\u201d. There was a \u201cmassively strange silence\u201d among Christian people, he said, in a climate in which consumers wanted cheap goods and claimed rights without responsibilities.<\/p>\n

Awareness was not enough, panellists said. Unity was the greatest weapon against trafficking, said Commissioner Christine MacMillan, who is the founder and director of the Salvation Army\u2019<\/a>s International Social Justice Commission, and chairs the World Evangelical Alliance\u2019s Global Human Trafficking Task Force.<\/p>\n

Read it all<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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An estimated 40.3 million men, women, and children worldwide are estimated to be trapped in modern slavery, among them potentially up to 136,000 victims in the UK alone https:\/\/t.co\/RUqKfj8q1Q<\/a><\/p>\n

— Church Times (@ChurchTimes) October 15, 2020<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n