WASHINGTON (ABP) — British Baptist pastor Steve Chalke has been appointed as a special advisor to the United Nation's Global Initiative to Fight Human Trafficking.
Chalke, chair of Stop the Traffic, a group of 1,000 organizations in 60 countries that work to stop the buying and selling of people, will work in the United Nation's Office on Drugs and Crime to help foster community action against human trafficking.
The initiative, also known as U.N.GIFT, was launched in March 2007 and is managed in cooperation with the International Organization for Migration, the International Labor Organization, the U.N. Children's Fund, the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.
The author of more than 40 books, Chalke has long campaigned to end poverty through housing, healthcare and educational projects. He has also become a major advocate in the anti-trafficking campaign.
Paul Montacute, director of Baptist World Aid, the relief and development arm of the Baptist World Alliance, called Chalke “probably the UK's best known Baptist pastor.”
According to a BWA press release, Chalke said that “the crime of people trafficking — or, to put it in stark terms, modern slavery — for sex, forced labor and even organ harvesting is one that shames us all.” His remarks came during the first international anti-human trafficking forum, held in February in Austria. The event, planned by U.N.GIFT, drew 1,200 delegates from the 192 member countries of the United Nations.
Human trafficking is “the world's fastest growing crime” and is “a great evil” that needs to be defeated, Chalke said.
According to U.N. estimates, more than 2.5 million people are victims of human trafficking worldwide each year. The vast majority of them are under the age of 24. The trafficking industry generates an estimated $31 billion annually.
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