The Caritas Internationalis Commitment on Combating Trafficking in human beings is inspired by and based on the directions given by the Church and in the Catholic Social Teaching, amongst others in the following texts:

"It becomes easy for the trafficker to offer his own 'services' to the victims, who often do not even vaguely suspect what awaits them. In some cases, there are women and girls who are destined to be exploited almost like slaves in their work, and not infrequently in the sex industry too."

"The trade in human persons constitutes a shocking offence against human dignity and a grave violation of fundamental human rights. It is an affront to fundamental values that are shared by all cultures and peoples, values rooted in the very nature of the human person."

The solemn proclamation of human rights is contradicted by a painful reality of violations, wars and violence of every kind, in the first place, genocides and mass deportations, the spreading on a virtual worldwide dimension of ever new forms of slavery such as trafficking in human beings, child soldiers, the exploitation of workers, illegal drug trafficking, prostitution.

“Even in countries with democratic forms of government, these rights are not always fully respected.” 

“In regard to children, great care should be taken not to place them in workshops and factories until their bodies and minds are sufficiently developed. For, just as very rough weather destroys the buds of spring, so does too early an experience of life’s hard toil blight the young promise of a child’s faculties, and render any true education impossible”

“Trafficking in persons – in which men, women and children from all over the globe are transported to other countries for the purposes of forced prostitution or labour – inherently rejects the dignity of the human person and exploits conditions of global poverty”