AMERICA/ARGENTINA - Nearly 100 years after the first law against human trafficking, the struggle of the Church continues

Buenos Aires (Agenzia Fides) - Today, September 23, at 5pm at Plaza Constitucion in the capital of Argentina, Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio, sj, Archbishop of Buenos Aires, will celebrate a Mass for the victims of human trafficking. The organizers wanted the celebration to coincide with the "International Day against sexual exploitation and human trafficking". The initiative this year is entitled: "For a society without slaves, nor excluded."
According to information sent to Fides by the Archdiocese of Buenos Aires, this Day was established on this date by the Conference of the World Coalition against human trafficking in 1999, because on September 23, 1913 the law 9143 was enacted in Argentina, the world's first law against child prostitution.
This law is also known as "Law Palacios", because the author and the proponent was Dr. Alfredo Palacios, the first Socialist member of parliament in Latin America, who in the early twentieth century sought to end women trafficking forced to be allocated to local brothels. Today, nearly a century after the first promulgation of this law, human trafficking, unfortunately, is a global crime. (CE) (Agenzia Fides 23/09/2011)