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Image: Vietnam and Scotland - An increasing problem of modern slavery that desperately needs a response.

07/02/2020
Vietnam and Scotland - An increasing problem of modern slavery that desperately needs a response.

St Josephine Bakhita was kidnapped into slavery at the age of 7 and Saturday 8th February marks the anniversary of her death which is also a day of prayer for victims of human trafficking and those who work to combat it.  Alister Bull of Hope For Justice is one such dedicated person working to end slavery and he writes this week's J&P Scotland blog.


Vietnam and Scotland have become inextricably linked through the rise of human trafficking. Who would have thought that Scotland, a nation that rid itself of historical slavery, is fettered by modern slavery. We may well come to terms with our past in restitution by Glasgow institutions but that is only half the story.

Slavery is still a problem today in Scotland and the numbers are rising rapidly. It has been nearly a 75% increase in the last year. The only means available to determine numbers are through figures produced by the National Crime Agency.

It has shown that from 2018 to 2019 the numbers of Vietnamese victims of human trafficking have astonishingly tripled. It makes Scotland not just top in figures, in the domestic nations of the UK for this nationality, but also Europe.

Understandably, such an escalation has stretched the Scottish statutory agencies. A perfect storm wreaks havoc as marginalised, pressurised and persecuted youth of certain sectors of Vietnam opt for the deceptively dangerous journey to seek a better way of life in the UK. What a desperate choice, when unaware of the pitfalls, they are exposed and vulnerable to the cruel hands of serious organised crime groups who have the pretence to offer a helping hand promising a better life. All it is, is to have a firm criminal grip on their future. The sad reality for these young people is that their dreams are fuelled by lies and they only discover this until it is too late. We need only think of the tragic texts goodbye to their loved one of the 39 Vietnamese victims suffocating in the back of a lorry in 2019.

It is one thing to try and resolve the presenting problem in Scotland but more needs to be done at the country of origin where government funded agencies unscrupulously encourage mass immigration of its younger population to generate returning income. It is a shocking culmination of factors but the net result is that slavery is happening here in Scotland.

There may well be debate that surrounds immigration but that should not deflect from the sordid and dark underbelly of Scottish society where serious organised crime groups, numbering over 400 in Scotland, run amok on human trafficking victims.

We may feel disempowered and resigned to a new trend and phenomenon but that response is not a moral option. This is why, over the past 2 years, I’ve sought to train face to face, #unlockingfreedom in Scottish communities so we can spot the signs and know what to do.

Hope for Justice has invested resources for this to be achieved and charities working in Scottish communities have benefited from this funded training. The challenging part is that the numbers of victims have only increased. I know that might be accounted for by an increase in numbers of incidences but I also hold out for that thought, that we are also raising awareness.

If you have reached this point in my blog, then my ask is to reach out to me directly to arrange training, receive information or recommend our training to organisations in your community so we can be the eyes and ears and spot the signs. Why? So we are #changinglives and #endingslavery.

For more information on training to spot the signs of human trafficking contact Alister Bull at the details below:
Mob:07921 454596
email: alister.bull@hopeforjustice.org
 
Next Training Event:: Tuesday 24th March 2020,  7pm - 9pm at 
Immaculate Concpetion Parish 2049 Maryhill Rd, Glasgow G20 0AA
if you would like to register interest in attending this event please email office@justiceandpeacescoltand.org.uk - places are limited.

Image: Nie Weider

31/01/2020
Nie Weider

This week in our blog, Danny Sweeney reflects on Holocaust Memorial Day and the 75th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camps.


 
There may have been as many as 15,000 concentration camps operating at one time or another across Nazi-controlled Europe during World War II. For me, however, when the Holocaust is mentioned I envisage that evocative image of the gateway into Auschwitz I declaring Arbeit Mach Frei.
 
Those gates - and others like them - through which millions of Jews, Roma and Sinti were forced: Socialists, Communists, Catholics, pacifists, LGBT people, and any others who failed to conform. The industrialised mass-murder of those whom the powerful deemed ‘other’ on a scale never seen before.
 
Monday marked 75 years since Auschwitz was liberated, the day which since 2001 the UK has marked as Holocaust Memorial Day. It commemorates the six million murdered by the Nazis, along with the victims of subsequent genocides in Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia, and Darfur. It seems a sad failure that for 75 years we have declared “Never again” while Khmer, Tutsi, Twa, Bosniak, Croat and Darfuris have added to the numbers we commemorate this week. And this fails to mention all those who have been massacred, but whom politics refuse to label as genocide. The Rohingya, Uigyher and Yazidi are in most recent memory.
 
Never Again
 
On this 75th anniversary, the talk has been about memory. As those who remember the death camps pass away, there is a fear that we will forget the lessons of history. One of the images circulating social media shows the Auschwitz gates superimposed with the words:

“Remember, it didn’t start with gas chambers. It started with politicians dividing people with ‘us vs. them’. It started with intolerance and hate speech and when people stopped caring became desensitized and turned a blind eye.”
 
Never Again
 
I saw that quote again this week on Twitter. Sadly, also in my feed was a story reporting yet another attack on a business with anti-Semitic graffiti. Another tweet came from a man who had been harassed and assaulted walking home with his boyfriend in Glasgow. Another announced the government’s latest plans to restrict migration. The latter declared that only “the best” will be “allowed” to come to the UK.
 
I know I’m not the only one who is seeing such tweets and recalls the history of the picketing of Jewish businesses and the smeared graffiti leading up to Kristallnacht in Germany in November 1938. That “night of the broken glass”, when synagogues were torched, Jewish homes, schools and businesses were vandalised and some 100 Jews were killed. In the aftermath, around 30,000 Jewish men were arrested and sent to Nazi concentration camps. Never Again
 
The detention of gay men, who were used for target practice and medical experiments in the concentration camps. Never Again

The MS St. Louis refused safe harbour in America, Canada, and the UK, returning many of its refugees to the hands of the Nazis they were fleeing. Never Again
 
We declare Never Again. Yet just last week young refugee children were denied a safe passage to join family in the UK. We declare Never Again. Yet Roma and Traveller communities are to be stripped of their rights.
 
Never Again…until the next time.

Image: Protectors Of One Another And Of The Environment

24/01/2020
Protectors Of One Another And Of The Environment

This week, John Kane lays down his hopes for 2020, looking at some of the opportunities and challenges we face to care for our common home.  Weekly blog.


This year will be a challenging one for people of faith working on behalf of the planet. Along with increasingly urgent efforts to ease the pain of the climate crisis, 2020 will include some important milestones:
 
• It will be the 50th anniversary of Earth Day on April 22.
• The fifth anniversary of Pope Francis completing his encyclical, Laudato Si, Caring for our Common Home, on May 24.
• The UN Climate Change Conference COP26 takes place from November 9 to 19, 2020.
 
In the Scottish Bishops’ address to the faithful for the 2019 general election, they called upon MPs to “commit the nation to responsible stewardship of the earth and all of its resources, and act on Pope Francis’ call to be ‘protectors of creation, protectors of God’s plan inscribed in nature, protectors of one another and of the environment’."
 
I wonder how the Bishops will bear witness to this moral issue and demonstrate their responsible stewardship in line with their expectations in the election address?
 
COP26 will be the biggest conference ever staged in Scotland, welcoming participants from all over the world as they come together to address climate change. It is an ideal opportunity for Church leaders in Scotland to show by actions their commitment to Laudato Si.
 
Catholic organisations throughout the world, including SCIAF and Justice and Peace Scotland, are among those leading the charge to make the tough but fundamentally moral decisions about fossil fuel use and climate change. Perhaps the Scottish Bishops could take the lead from the Bishops in Ireland in committing to Global Divestment, bearing witness to the values of Laudato Si and clearly demonstrating responsible stewardship.
 
Each diocese could follow a programme of ‘Transition to a Sustainable Future’. This could acknowledge the diocese’ carbon footprint, land use and ecology, and could incorporate a sustainability policy to ensure that all materials purchased come from a recyclable or sustainable source. This could be extended to all suppliers and contractors to ensure all timbers are accredited and do not come from illegal foresting. The life cycle of all materials purchased should also be considered before purchasing.
 
At the heart of transition should be Laudato Si, encouraging and promoting best practice in parishes. All parishes could have a Laudato Si circle, actively promoting the many excellent initiatives and resources, such as SCIAF’s ‘Caring for our common home’ and the Catholic Social Justice’s  ‘Promoting Care for Creation’.
 
Parishes could also become Eco-congregations and Fair Trade parishes, as well as subscribing to Living Simply, the Global Catholic Climate Movement, and the Carbon Trust.
 
The Scottish Bishops called for MPs to commit to responsible stewardship. Their own challenge is to demonstrate their engagement in this urgent moral crisis of climate change. I hope they will inspire us both by courage and conviction to realise God’s dream of a just world in which humanity is reconciled to all of creation. It would be their gift to the faithful for the anniversary of Laudato Si and the world when nations gather in Glasgow in November.
 
 
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