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The Episcopal Church has partnered with other faith groups to press the travel and hospitality industries to fight the sex trafficking of children. According to the U.S. State Department, more than 1 million children are caught up in a global network of sex trafficking in which people travel to engage in paid sex acts.The groups are seeing some success with their endeavor. The Office of Women’s Ministries and the Executive Council’s Social Responsibility in Investments (SRI) Committee have joined campaigns to protect and rescue children caught in the web of what has become a multi-billion dollar industry.Massachusetts investment firm Boston Common Asset Management used a shareholder resolution to convince the Marriott hotel empire to reshape its human rights policy with a new “protection of the rights of children” clause to raise awareness of the issue. The company is a member of the New York-based Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility.Trafficking children is one of the world’s most “deplorable problems,” said the Rev. Canon Brian Grieves, director of the Episcopal Church’s Peace and Justice Ministries.The SRI committee has seen significant progress in pressuring the international Starwood Hotels and Resorts chain to promote a code of ethics and to train staff to counter trafficking.“The main step now,” said Harry Van Buren, the SRI committee’s legal consultant, “is to work with each of these companies to make sure they have the right language in their codes of conduct and that they are implementing the code of conduct in a way that has positive benefits for children around the world.”“This initiative is a natural extension of our ongoing work to prevent child abuse in our congregations and communities, and I am encouraged to see other faith communities are taking this seriously,” said Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori.
http://www.thecronline.com/news_article.php?nid=2622&ndate=18/06/2007
As in the days of Noah...
