To commemorate the International Day of the Girl, the U.S. Embassy to the Holy See recently launched a social media campaign to draw more awareness to the trafficking of girls and women.
The Facebook post announcing the campaign read, “In honor of this year’s International Day of the Girl, we will be launching a week-long social media campaign dedicated to raising awareness of women and girls in trafficking. This year’s theme, EmPOWER Girls: Before, during and after crises, highlights girls in emergency contexts, such as trafficking, and the needs that arise from these dangerous and difficult situations. Check our Facebook and Twitter every day to see more posts about #IDG!”
The United Nations website explains the history behind this event, “Since 2012, October 11 has been marked as the International Day of the Girl. The day aims to highlight and address the needs and challenges girls face, while promoting girls’ empowerment and the fulfillment of their human rights.”
This year’s day takes on further significance as it is part of a much larger global effort, “The world’s 1.1 billion girls are a source of power, energy, and creativity – and the millions of girls in emergencies are no exception. This year’s International Day of the Girl (IDG) on October 11 marks the beginning of a year-long effort to spur global attention and action to the challenges and opportunities girls face before, during, and after crises.”
Connected to the issue, Pope Francis reiterated the Church’s dedication to eradicating such horrors as girl trafficking at the World Congress on Child Dignity in the Digital World.
The Holy Father said, “the Church today feels especially bound to work strenuously and with foresight for the protection of minors and their dignity, not only within her own ranks, but in society as a whole and throughout the world. She does not attempt to do this alone – for that is clearly not enough – but by offering her own effective and ready cooperation to all those individuals and groups in society that are committed to the same end. In this sense, the Church adheres to the goal of putting an end to ‘the abuse, exploitation, trafficking and all forms of violence against and torture of children’ set by the United Nations in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.”
Read more:
Full text: Pope’s address to conference on protecting children in a digital world
And today we celebrate...