Slavery and human trafficking: chapters in the same book

By Fr Stephan Alexander

General Manager, CCSJ and AMMR

There’s a song I often come back to when the world feels too heavy and injustice seems too stubborn. It’s a simple melody by Ray Repp called ‘Till All My People Are One’.

The words aren’t fancy, but they cut deep. They speak of a world where people are torn apart, suffering in silence, and waiting, sometimes crying, for someone to speak up, to act, to care. It’s a call for us to “stand together for what we believe, [to] work for what must be done”.

Last week, that song rang louder than ever. On July 30, we commemorated World Day Against Trafficking in Persons, and just two days later, on August 1, we celebrated Emancipation Day.

The first one speaks of a terrible evil still happening right now. The other reminds us of a terrible evil from the past. But they are not separate stories. They are chapters in the same book.

The sad truth is that slavery never really ended. It changed clothes. It took on new names—racial and gender discrimination, human trafficking, sexual exploitation, forced labour—but the same cruelty remains.

Today, millions of people worldwide, including those in the Caribbean, are bought and sold like property. Most of them are poor. Many are women and children. Many are migrants. All of them are people made in God’s image.

When we celebrate Emancipation Day, we remember the African men, women, and children brought to these shores in chains, stripped of their names, families, languages, and dignity. It was one of the greatest crimes against humanity, and yet it was defended for centuries by governments, businesses and yes, even by the Church.

We must speak the truth: parts of the Church stood by too long, and in some cases, even justified the enslavement of Africans. Bishops, Religious orders, and Catholic institutions benefited from slave labour and the profits of the plantation system. It is a painful chapter in our history, and we cannot pretend it didn’t happen. However, admitting the Church’s failure is not to destroy our faith; it is an essential step towards healing it.

Our repentance must lead to change. The Church, having once stood on the wrong side of history, must now stand firmly on the side of Christ, who came to “set the captives free” (Lk 4:18).

The Gospel of Jesus Christ does not stand with the slave master. It stands with the enslaved. It stands with the trafficked girl held in a back room. It stands with the worker who is underpaid and overworked. It stands with every human being who has been treated like an object and told their life doesn’t matter.

Catholic teaching affirms the dignity of every person, not because of their job, money, or skin colour, but because they are children of God. That means the street dweller, the housekeeper, the fisherman, the vendor, the deportee, and the refugee all have worth. None of us is more or less human than the other.

But traffickers don’t believe that. They see bodies, not people. Profit, not souls. They prey on the poor, the desperate, the unprotected. And many times, these things happen ‘in silence’—in hotels, bars, at street corners and ports—because nobody dares to speak.

Yet our silence may not be our only iniquity, because we too are sometimes guilty of treating human persons as objects, instruments, or commodities: in our relationships, in the workplace, during everyday interactions, and particularly in business transactions.

So the question is: What are we doing about it? Can we honour this Emancipation Day by becoming part of the solution, both as the Church and as individuals? To do this, we need to become more honest, humbler, and braver.

We need to teach people what trafficking looks like, listen to the stories of survivors, and stand up to those who benefit from the suffering of others.

We cannot preach the gospel on Sunday and close our eyes to slavery on Monday. Our parishes need to become more alert, more active. We must remember that true faith requires walking alongside the poor, not just praying for them. It means getting involved: speaking up, demanding justice.

Celebrating our ancestors who experienced the horrific evils of enslavement requires us to continue the struggle for freedom and justice for all those currently enslaved.

Emancipation is not a one-day event. It is a lifelong struggle. It must be our struggle, whether as descendants of the formerly enslaved or those who stand in solidarity with us.

As Christians, we can’t simply remember freedom; we must work for it (Gal 5:1).

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