Slavery-Free Communities

Emerging Theologies and Faith Responses to Modern Slavery

Dan Pratt

• Publisher: SCM Press
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN: 9780334061298
• eBook ISBN: 9780334061311
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Theology

Modern Slavery and Human Trafficking (MSHT) are global crimes impacting local communities. Vulnerable people are exploited through labour, sex and forced criminality. Churches and communities are increasingly encountering these victims and survivors, and consequently need to develop more effective engagement. The book will highlight that churches and communities are in a unique position to partner towards slavery-free communities.Beginning with the narratives of survivors who experienced three different forms of MSHT, including labour exploitation, sexual exploitation and domestic exploitation, the book then shows how practitioners and theologians respond to these narratives through exploring theologies of suffering, ecology, missiology, restorative justice, trinitarian theology and liberation theology.Offering faith responses from organisations such The Salvation Army, The Clewer Initiative, BMS World Mission and Rene Cassinhe the volume also includes a final resource section with prayers and liturgy for survivors and victims as well as for church and community responses.The book includes a forward by the Rt Hon Theresa May MP and an opening prayer by the Most Revd Justin Welby

Part 1: Setting the Scene

1. Modern Slavery, Churches and People of Faith

KEVIN HYLAND

Policing brings many challenges and opportunities. It involves meeting people at the lowest point in their lives and, conversely, seeing police officers, public servants, charities and the public behave with bravery, integrity and humility, often in the face of adversity, tragedy or disaster. Seeing families lose loved ones to tragedies or at the hands of a murderer, or witnessing the pain of a parent losing a young child, could harden you to become insensitive. But in my own experience I felt the opposite was true, as each time it strengthened my resolve to be of service.

Encounters with vulnerable or abused people is part of the job in policing. In some geographical areas the challenges for the young in communities are heightened simply because of where they are born or live. Societal norms have changed over recent decades, adjusting the way we look at many things. Over the past 25 years, interactions crossing the world have become commonplace for many, and not just because of the growth of the internet. Holidays in exotic locations, globetrotting career breaks, student gap years, cruises crossing oceans, working in foreign stock markets and student exchange programmes, all offer opportunities to explore the world, and for many, until the COVID pandemic, were seen as a rite of passage.

Possibly the greatest change globalization brings is the proliferation of trade and business activity that navigate seamlessly across continents. This is often driven by a rapidly changing market, including factors such as seasonal traditions, planned or unforeseen events, fluctuations in weather and climate, or responding to trends orchestrated by commercial marketing or social media.

Shamefully, another commodity hides in these evolving global markets: human beings changing hands. Our disposable culture now includes disposable people, used and discarded on a whim to meet market demands. The demand for a flexible workforce of temporary status, with so many people across the world desperate for work, has done much to negate many of the universal rights and protections agreed over many years by the UN, Council of Europe, International Labour Organization, the EU and the like.

The trafficking and slavery of people has never been more common throughout history than it currently is. Even when considering population booms of the past century, the numbers pro rata remains greater today. With 40 million people suffering, lost in forced labour, sexual exploitation, domestic servitude, forced criminality, or marriage and organ harvesting, this suffering should shame us all and we should realize, as the current incumbents of this planet, that we are all in some way responsible. And, of course, our fragility on earth has been made abundantly clear through the global pandemic, which tragically has exacerbated exploitation and the vulnerability of the most marginalized in our societies.

Many in the UK and across Europe believe these crimes only occur on far distant shores, but this is not the case. In 2018, the Walk Free Foundation Global Slavery Index estimated 136,000 suffer modern slavery and human trafficking in the UK (Minderoo Foundation, 2018). This estimate was corroborated in 2020 by Justice and Care’s report, ‘It Still Happens Here’ (Gren-Jardan, 2020), which provides regional breakdowns of prevalence across the UK.

Surprisingly, our personal connection to this crime might be much closer than we imagine. For high-street products we buy, the vehicles we drive, and the technology we increasingly use, we need to ask, ‘Is there a child working a mine excavating cobalt? Is there a child on a plantation harvesting rubber for tyres? For fashion outlets on London’s high streets, is there a woman forced to sew garments in a Bangladeshi factory or in an east Midlands house? Are there men working on North Atlantic fishing vessels who are abused and exploited for catches sold in supermarkets and restaurants across Europe?’

Extortionate recruitment fees are a common feature for migrant workers and can lead to a life of poverty and exploitation. Organizations such as the Institute of Human Rights and Business1 and the International Labour Organization2 have advocated the abolition of recruitment fees for some time and for businesses to adopt the UN’s Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights introduced in 2011 with three pillars: 1) the state’s duty to protect human rights; 2) corporate responsibility to respect, and 3) access to remedy if rights are not respected.

Global business and trade have grown exponentially in recent years, but so also has the exploitation of workers. Success has been increasingly viewed through the lens of financial prowess and the accumulation of wealth. Prioritization of shareholder dividends, exorbitant bonuses for executives, and the adage ‘stack ’em high, sell ’em cheap’, have all contributed to a blind spot when it comes to considering the workers in the supply chains. On too many occasions government and business leaders disparage particular races, communities or groups for discriminatory reasons. It is important, however, to remember that in 1954 the UN Secretary General and Nobel Peace Prize winner Dag Hammarskjöld stated, ‘The United Nations was set up not to get us to heaven, but only to save us from hell’ (United Nations Association). The international community should reflect on these words today given that human trafficking and modern slavery is a living hell on earth for 40 million worldwide – a living hell that requires a coherent global strategy.

The framework for the international response was drafted over 20 years ago at the UN in the Palermo Protocol, to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children (United Nations Treaty Collection, 2000).3 Ratified in 2003, the protocol now has 178 nations as parties, with most introducing their own domestic legislation. To be considered trafficking in persons, the protocol sets three conditions:

1. Act (that is, recruitment, harbouring …).
2. Means (that is, through the use of force, deception, abuse of authority …).
3. Purpose (that is, for the purpose of forced labour, servitude, sexual exploitation …).

The protocol defines trafficking thus:

Trafficking in persons shall mean the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of persons, by means of the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation. Exploitation shall include, at a minimum, the exploitation of the prostitution of others or other forms of sexual exploitation, forced labour or services, slavery or practices similar to slavery, servitude or the removal of organs. The consent of a victim of trafficking in persons to the intended exploitation set forth [above] shall be irrelevant where any of the means set forth [above] have been used. (United Nations Treaty Collection, 2000)

In 2005 the Council of Europe Convention on Action against Trafficking in Human Beings4 was opened for accession and came into force in 2008. The convention established a Group of Experts on Action against Trafficking in Human Beings (GRETA, comprising 15 members), which monitors and reports publicly on the implementation of the convention through reports from various countries. It has been ratified by 46 European states and also adopted by some nations outside of Cou...

Table of contents

• Copyright information
• Contents
• Epigraph
• Foreword
• Editor’s Introduction
• About the Contributors
• Part 1: Setting the Scene
• 1. Modern Slavery, Churches and People of Faith
• Part 2: Survivors’ Stories
• 2. Stella’s Story
• 3. Richard’s Story
• 4. Amna’s Story
• Part 3: Listening to Survivors and Emerging Theologies
• 5. Real People, Real Lives: Biblical Perspectives on Modern Slavery and Human Trafficking
• 6. Learning from the Church’s Role in the Transatlantic Slave Trade in Responding to the Exploitation and Trafficking of People Today
• 7. Towards a Liberation Theology of Modern Slavery: Emerging Grassroots Responses to Exploitation
• 8. Restoring What? A Critical and Restorative Justice Response to the ‘Modern Slavery’ Agenda
• 9. Suffering, Slavery and Participating in the Triune God
• Part 4: Wider Faith Responses to Modern Slavery
• 10. The Role of the Church in Responding to Modern Slavery and Exploitation
• 11. Christianity with Its Sleeves Rolled Up: The Salvation Army and Responses to Exploitation
• 12. ‘Thank God for Not Making Me a Slave’
• 13. Awakening Our Slumber: A Missiological Response to Global Modern Slavery
• 14. Exploitation of the Earth, Exploitation of People
• Part 5: Prayers in Response
• 1. Prayers for Victims Being Exploited
• 2. Prayers for Survivors Finding Freedom
• 3. Prayers for Church and Faith Communities
• 4. Prayers for Exploiters and Traffickers
• Part 6: Resources