Training Seminar: Building a Network - The Prophetic Role of Women Religious in the Fight Against Trafficking in Persons, Italy

This five-day Training Seminar will mark the 200th anniversary of the abolition of slavery by bringing together in Rome, Italy, more than 30 nuns from 29 different congregations already active in the field of human trafficking in 27 countries with the aim of:
1. significantly developing and strengthening networking mechanisms and communications skills among nuns addressing trafficking in persons (TIP) in countries of origin, transit and destination;
2. facilitating occasions for participants to share their best practices and country-specific TIP assessments through delivery of individual Country Reports;
3. developing internet procedures and structures to facilitate dissemination of Best Practices products;
4. strengthening the nuns’ national and international capacities to tackle TIP through multi-disciplinary, political and strategic approaches;
5. providing the women religious with additional training opportunities.

The five-day Training Seminar will include informative lectures by experts and discussion with leading TIP experts from the United States, the Holy See, the Italian government, religious congregations (women and men), and faith-based NGOs. Given the breadth of countries represented, this meeting will represent a unique opportunity for strategic information-sharing and gathering. A critical element of information exchange will be the daily Country Reports, in which each participant will present a 15-minute overview of the status of TIP in her respective country, and the best practices used by women religious to combat it. Each report will highlight evidence of the need for the nuns’ engagement in their respective national and regional contexts, while also arguing for further development and strengthening of a global network comprised of both women and men religious. In order to
highlight and solidify results, the final day of the Training Seminar will feature a Public Session, open to members of the Vatican, religious congregations, the Italian government, Vatican media corps, representatives of the Holy See Diplomatic Corps, as well as academic and NGO communities.

Project Rationale:

This project proposal is the result of conversations between the U.S. Embassy to the Holy See and Sr. Eugenia Bonetti, a Consolata Missionary and National Coordinator of the Counter-Trafficking Office with the Italian Union of Major Superiors (USMI). Sr. Eugenia was acknowledged as a “Woman of Courage” in March 2007 by Paula Dobriansky, U.S. Undersecretary for
Democracy and Global Affairs, and as one of six “Heroes Acting to End Modern-Day Slavery” in the 2004 TIP Report published by the U.S. Department of State’s Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons.

A member of the initial leadership team of Embassy Vatican’s 2004 TIP training program (in conjunction with USMI, the International Union of Superiors General (UISG) and the International Organization for Migration
(IOM)), Sr. Eugenia has become a known quantity in the anti-trafficking field. Her years of experience have taught her that while nuns have a natural capacity to address the spiritual and pastoral needs of TIP victims, they need training to effectively deal with victims’ security and day-to-day practical needs (e.g. housing, personal security, restoration of documents, programs of reintegration, healing process, etc.). Sr. Eugenia has
identified the need to focus on networking and communications skills, while devising mechanisms which allow the nuns to effectively and broadly exchange best practices and develop capacities and campaigns to raise awareness about the phenomenon and their efforts to eradicate it.