“Migration rules should be more humane, we do not realize that the world has changed, we are living in a global village. The earth belongs to all. Why this hostility to migrants?”. This is what the archbishop of Abuja, Mgr. John Onaiyekan (Nigeria), told SIR on the margins of the International Conference on human trafficking, jointly organised by the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace and the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales in Rome today. Mgr. Onaiyekan focused on the Nigerian experience “in which men and women are not only victims of human trafficking but also responsible for it”. “Every time I come to Europe I am asked: why do your women work on the streets? The answer is that supply is always linked to demand”. “Our real problem – he observed – is how to persuade our women not to believe those who promise them a work abroad. I tell them: be careful, because if you are given a passport and a visa without going to an embassy, this means that they are counterfeit and you run serious risks. But they do not listen, because they think that in Europe things will change for the better, that they will earn easy money”. In Nigeria, he pointed out, “there is a fruitful collaboration between religious groups and police forces, but there are still many difficulties”.

08/05/2012 -