Peace & Justice

WASHINGTON -- Jon Proctor knows the road to self-sufficiency is a long one. It's even longer when the weekly paycheck totals a little more than $200.

"We're trying to get back on our feet," the 55-year-old divorced father of six says, explaining how he's scheduled only about 30 hours a week stocking shelves at a Safeway supermarket on the overnight shift.

GENEVA -- Human trafficking is such a lucrative business that as soon as laws are passed to counter the practice, traffickers find new ways to continue the modern-day slave trade, a Vatican official told the U.N. Human Rights Council.

Archbishop Silvano Tomasi, the Vatican's representative to U.N. agencies in Geneva, said an estimated 3 million people fall prey to traffickers each year and their trade generates more than $30 billion annually.

International action rallying governments, law enforcement agencies, human rights organizations, faith groups and people of good will are needed to combat human trafficking, which primarily involves poor women and children, the archbishop told the council Sept. 14.

As the world's economy has globalized, he said, so has the trade in human beings, which "exploits the extreme poverty and vulnerability of many women and minors who try to escape intolerable conditions of misery and violence."

Lured by the hope of jobs and a better life, they become "bonded to their masters as slaves with passports and personal documents seized and a sense of identity destroyed," he said.

PHILADELPHIA -- The Philadelphia archdiocesan Catholic education secretariat announced Sept. 13 that its 17 high schools would close Sept. 14 and not reopen until a settlement was reached with teachers on strike since Sept. 6.

The high schools opened Sept. 7 and were staffed by administrators and nonunion employees. The first few days of school were primarily devoted to orientation sessions.

In a letter to parents, school officials said continued reduced staffing could jeopardize student safety. They said missed days will be made up when the school year resumes and parents would then receive adjusted school calendars.

Both sides in the dispute met Sept. 8, 9 and 11 but were unable to reach an agreement, though the education secretariat's announcement reported "some progress in the negotiations."

A statement from the archdiocesan communications' office said the Secretariat for Catholic Education was "making every effort to minimize disruption to the academic year and bring a speedy resolution to the strike. We are anxious for our teachers to return to the classroom as soon as possible."