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Good Shepherd Asia Pacific Workshop

From migration to trafficking: A slippery slope

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Good Shepherd Asia Pacific Workshop

KUALA LUMPUR, 16 February 2011—Gathered together with more than 50 counter trafficking experts from across South East Asia, ICMC U.S. Liaison Officer Jane Bloom presented workshop participants with an analysis of the multiple facets for migration and trafficking and the church's collective role in preventing trafficking, and in protecting those most likely to become victims.

It has been a joy to share these last five days with you at your important regional convening on migration and trafficking – to learn from you, to network with you, to enjoy the good food with you, to laugh with you. So first, let me say “thank you” for opening your workshop and your hearts to ICMC.

Migration is, quite literally, ICMC’s middle name. We have chaired the International NGO Platform on the Migrant Workers Convention, and we have helped lead the civil society charge at each Global Forum on Migration and Development. As you heard earlier in the week, we are actively working in this region to combat cross-border trafficking between Indonesia and Malaysia, with the help of Good Shepherd in Sabah. We also partner with the Sisters of Good Shepherd in the U.S. and others as active members of the U.S. Catholic Coalition Against Human Trafficking, and we were part of the Catholic Coalition that went to Vienna to meet on counter-trafficking strategies with the UN Office of Drugs and Crime. We fund Caritas Migrant Center in Lebanon to operate a shelter for abused and enslaved domestic workers, mostly from Indonesia and the Philippines.

On Monday, Chin Poh Choo , did a beautiful job in recounting her “ Rome Experience” and the time she spent with us at our ICMC Governing Council meeting. Well, this Kuala Lumpur workshop is my Rome experience. PohChoo met the “Princes of the Church”, as Claire commented, but I am here meeting many of its “Princesses”. PohChoo recounted how her networking with ICMC in Rome led to some Bishops giving her good connections into some possible funding. My networking here has led to an invitation to visit your migrant center in Singapore this coming weekend – and to conduct joint missions in the near future to a number of places, like East Flores in Indonesia. Neither PohChoo nor I is an “industrial spy”, as was joked on Monday. Rather, we are both leveraging the strengths, the knowledge, the connections of the other’s network to better the lives of vulnerable migrant women and children.

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To read this statement in its entirety, please see the pdf document below.


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