IMAGE: CNS photo/Lilian Muendo, courtesy GSR
By Beth Griffin
UNITED
NATIONS (CNS) — Mely Lenario quietly described her harrowing journey from
ambitious, naive rural girl trafficked to hopeless, drug-fueled urban
prostitute, through slow rehabilitation to a new life as an outreach worker.
After
she finished her story, hundreds of people in a U.N. conference room jumped to
their feet in a sustained ovation.
Lenario
spoke March 13 on “Preventing Human Trafficking Among Rural Women and Girls,” a
panel co-sponsored by the Permanent Observer Mission of the Holy See to the
United Nations.
As
an 8-year-old, Lenario was abused by her stepfather in the Philippines. He
threatened her at knife point after she watched him rape her sister. When she
confronted her mother and neighbors about it, she was placed into a Jesuit-run
orphanage for seven years.
As
a teen, she accepted an offer of work and a free education from an elegant
woman visitor who arranged transportation to Cebu, a city distant from her
hometown. In Cebu, she was prostituted and forced to use drugs to stay awake
all night and improve the glum demeanor that discouraged customers.
Lenario
begged for release but was told she had to pay for the transportation and other
expenses incurred by her traffickers.
She
resigned herself to a life of prostitution. “I felt hopeless and worthless. I
felt already ruined,” Lenario said.
Ultimately,
she met compassionate women and men religious who introduced her to the Good
Shepherd Welcome House in Cebu. With their help and five years of effort, she
overcame her drug habit, finished high school and trained to be a nurse’s aide.
“I
had to learn how to forgive myself and the people who caused me pain,” she
said.
Lenario
now studies social work and serves as an outreach counselor to trafficked women
and girls at the Good Shepherd Welcome House.
“I
want to give them hope. I want to be an inspiration and give voice to all the
abused women out there. I want to show them that if I could change my life,
they can, too,” she said.
The
U.N. panel was a side event to the 62nd session of the Commission on the Status
of Women.
It
focused on the contributions of women religious to prevent trafficking by providing
educational and employment opportunities for rural girls, women and their
families, disrupt the “supply chain” of the trafficking business, and help
survivors tell their stories.
Trafficked
women are “marginalized by an environment that can’t meet their needs,” Mercy
Sister Angela Reed said. Therefore, anti-trafficking strategies must address
the root causes of the problem, which include poverty, unemployment,
discrimination, violence, rural isolation and lack of access to education, she
said. Sister Reed is the coordinator of Mercy Global Action at the United
Nations.
“Human
trafficking is one of the darkest and most revolting realities in the world
today,” said Msgr. Tomasz Grysa, Vatican deputy ambassador. Vulnerable rural
women and girls suffer “compounded marginalization” and are at a “cumulative
disadvantage prior to being trafficked,” he said. “Their dignity and rights are
not adequately respected before they’re trafficked, something that makes them
more susceptible to much worse violations of their dignity and rights later.”
Religious
sisters are “going to the existential peripheries” to do heroic work, but they
cannot do it alone, Msgr. Grysa continued. Trafficking is “a global phenomenon
that exceeds the competence of any one community or country. To eliminate it,
we need a mobilization comparable in size to that of the phenomenon itself.”
Sister
Annie Jesus Mary Louis, a Franciscan Missionary of Mary, is executive director
of Jeevan Jharna Vikas Sanstha in the Indian state of Chhattisgarh. She said,
“Sexual exploitation is big business, governed by the same principles of supply
and demand as any commercial activity.”
The
sex industry treats people like products and the sex trade has a supply chain
of exploitation driven by demand and fueled by greed, vulnerability and
deception. It is an illusion that women and girls freely choose prostitution,
she said.
The
supply chain can be disrupted and trafficking prevented when families have
opportunities and feel like society cares about them, Sister Louis said.
Families need loving accompaniment and rural women and girls should be
protected with at least the same level of investment that is put into labor
exploitation, she said.
The
rural population is disproportionately affected by trafficking, said Mercy
Sister Lynda Dearlove, founder of Women at the Well in London. Religious groups
with long-term enduring local relationships have an advantage over large
organizations in preventing trafficking, she said.
“Individuals
hold the key to empowering women and girls,” she said. Large international
funding groups sometimes create an unnecessary layer between donors and those
in need, she said.
Sister
Reed said women must be seen as anti-trafficking advocates. The Religious
Sisters of Mercy help women share firsthand accounts to bring women’s voices
into public policy discussions and prevention efforts. “We need to change the
dominant narrative that trafficking is a random act” to an understanding that
it is a sign of systemic marginalization and oppression, she said.
Successful
preventive approaches counter the vulnerability of potential trafficking victims,
Sister Reed said. They include providing an adequate standard of living and
quality education, fostering human attachment and a sense of belonging in
adolescents, and supporting decent work and full participation in society for
adults.
Sister
Sheila Smith, a Sister of the Sacred Heart, who is co-founder of Persons
Against the Crime of Trafficking in Humans in Ottawa, Ontario, described the
mutual relationship between human rights and human dignity in the context of
rural trafficking.
“We
work tirelessly for prevention because we value each other,” she said.
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