VATICAN CITY (Reuters) – Pope Francis condemned female genital mutilation and trafficking of ladies for prostitution on Sunday, calling them humiliating affronts to ladies’s dignity and urging officers to do all the pieces potential to end each.
“This observe, which is sadly frequent in numerous components of the world, humiliates the dignity of a lady and gravely assaults her bodily integrity,” Francis mentioned, talking on the U.N. International Day of Zero Tolerance for Female Genital Mutilation (FGM).
According to the United Nations, FGM is concentrated in about 30 international locations in Africa and the Middle East however can also be practiced by immigrant populations elsewhere. More than 4 million women are vulnerable to present process FGM this yr, the U.N. says.
Francis, talking to pilgrims and vacationers in St. Peter’s Square for his weekly blessing and handle, famous that the observe was usually carried out in circumstances that endangered a woman’s well being.
In a associated attraction, Francis referred to as for extra efforts to cease human trafficking, significantly of ladies and women for pressured prostitution.
“This is a deep wound inflicted by the shameful seek for acquire with none respect for the human particular person,” he mentioned forward of the Catholic Church’s International Day of Prayer and Awareness Against Human Trafficking this Tuesday.
“There are so many ladies that we see on the streets who should not free. They are slaves of traffickers who ship them to work and beat them if they do not return with cash. This occurs in the present day, in our cities,” he mentioned.
They embrace Rome the place authorities say legal gangs lure ladies to Italy with the promise of jobs after which power them into prostitution, threatening to hurt their households again dwelling in the event that they go to the police.
Calling each FGM and trafficking of individuals, “wounds of humanity,” Francis urged leaders “to behave decisively to cease each the exploitation in addition to humiliating practices that afflict above all ladies and women”.
Catholic nuns in Rome are on the forefront of preventing trafficking of ladies. In 2016, Francis visited a Rome protected home the place a charity protects ladies free of pimps.
(Reporting by Philip Pullella; Editing by Susan Fenton)
