Pope and Welby joined by imams and rabbis for anti-slavery declaration

[Siegehammer]

Representatives of the world’s religions - including rabbis, the archbishop of Canterbury, imams, ayatollahs, Buddhist high priests, and Her Holiness Mata Amritanandamayi - met with Pope Francis today to condemn slavery.

For a brief couple of hours, they found something on which they could agree: that slavery in its many contemporary forms is an unmitigated evil, “a disgrace to God, a dishonour to humankind,” as the Orthodox ecumenical patriarch Bartholomew called it.

The patriarch was speaking by video link. The others were present at the signing of a declaration in which they committed to working together for the eradication of what Francis has called a crime against humanity. They set a deadline of 2020.

That looks ambitious: according to the latest edition of the Walk Free Foundation’s Global Slavery Index, almost 36 million people are trapped in slavery of some kind. But the declaration is intended to give the issue a higher international profile, and is a tribute to the energy and determination of the Walk Free anti-slavery movement’s founder, the Australian mining tycoon Andrew Forrest.