Every two hours a woman disappears due to gender violence and human trafficking. Sister Benjamine Kimala Nanga, a Comboni missionary from Chad works for the prevention and reporting of human trafficking.

We met Sister Benjamine on the outskirts of Lima at a place called Pueblo Libre. She told us: “I am part of the Kawsay network of the Conference of Religious in Peru, a network of consecrated people whose main concern is to fight against human trafficking. ‘Kawsay’ is a Quechua word that means ‘to live’.” The network is composed of more than 38 religious congregations and some diocesan priests. The problem of human trafficking in Peru is increasing both as to the number of victims and the ways and means used to recruit the majority of the women and girls. Poverty is one of the factors that render people much more vulnerable. The precarious living conditions of many families open the door to ‘tempting offers of work’.

Sister Benjamine Kimala Nanga.

There are no official figures but according to the office of the Ombudsman, the chief defender of the Peruvian people, last year about five thousand people disappeared. Of these, 1,506 were adult women and 3,510 were young girls. On average, fifteen people disappeared daily, or one every two hours. According to the police, the disappearances are connected to the gender violence that exists in Peru, to human trafficking, family traumas, and the lack of a standard system of rapidly tracing women who have disappeared. During the lockdown, the organisation for human rights in Peru reported mostly the disappearance of adolescents fleeing a life of violence, who are kidnapped or end up being trafficked. Sr Benjamine explains the aims of her work: “First of all the prevention of trafficking by means of various workshops to strengthen women, developing activities that increase the self-esteem of minors, promoting a culture of prevention, and safeguarding against sexual abuse. My main activity is to hold training workshops for teachers, administrators, managers, assistants, support personnel, authorities (police, procurators, and the personnel of the centres of admission for minors), catechists and parents. I attended a six-month training course organised by the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Peru; this helped me to understand the law and to speak from knowledge of the law and not just from experience”.

Her work has led Sr Benjamine to visit various places in the country and to meet people, especially the youth. The religious Sister informed us: “Human trafficking is a crime that hides many other activities that the traffickers use to attract vulnerable people. In many places, most of the victims are young, especially girls under eighteen”.
The missionary Sister dwelt especially upon one particular episode: “I was struck by the case of a girl of seventeen in a jungle village. When she finished secondary school, she went to the city to prepare for the college entrance exams. Unfortunately, she failed the exams as she had not had the same quality of schooling as the young people from the city. When she arrived here, there were many demands upon her finances (lessons, rent, food, etc.). Without realising what was happening, she allowed herself to be exploited sexually. She was given a job in an internet cafe where she would help people to go online. I called her one day and she said: “Please call me later Sister” I knew something was wrong and called her back a few days later she told me she no longer worked there because she had been made to sign a one-month contract to provide sexual services to male clients. I listened without judging her. Due to the added problem of the pandemic, she could not continue and returned to her village”.

The missionary continued: “One problem we have is that many of our target people (young people and teachers) live in remote areas that are hard to reach, which makes follow-up all the more difficult. Another is the fact that, in many cases, people do not know what is meant by the term ‘human trafficking’. Many people confuse the meaning of the words and imagine they have something to do with treating people well. They are unaware of what it truly involves. This is a crime that has no regard for frontiers and is creating an increasing number of victims in Peru. There are minors and adults who are kidnapped, forced to comply, detained, and compelled to various types of sexual exploitation. They are forced to beg on the streets where they live in sub-human conditions and are even robbed of their internal organs. This is a huge problem with many facets. The worst affected are the children and adolescents”.
The country has the highest Covid-19 mortality rate in the world and has had more than two million cases, and 190,000 deaths. Sr Benjamine tells us: “Because of the pandemic, the women have found themselves in a very difficult situation. For this reason, we provide them with basic foodstuffs and items of hygiene, and we use the opportunity to raise people’s awareness and help them to protect themselves from the Covid-19 and human trafficking. In other parishes, we have set up ‘soup kitchens’: we buy the food, and a group of women do the cooking and distribute the food according to the number of members in each family”.

Lima. CCA./ Leon petrosyan

Even though the borders have been closed because of the pandemic, human trafficking has increased. The traffickers are using new ways and means to continue to capture and deceive potential victims, mainly through the internet and social media. “We have recently seen some of the social media – Sr Benjamine adds – carrying advertising to get people to go and work in the United States or in Europe where a person may work and study. Quite a few young people fall into this virtual trap”.
Since it is difficult for them to move around the country due to the pandemic restrictions, Sr Benjamine and her group have organised an online training workshop for young people and teachers. “We work with them to raise their awareness so that they do not accept offers of work over the internet.  By way of prevention, we have transmitted videos in which we speak of human trafficking, its causes, and the physical and psychological consequences. Our work has produced results and people have begun to report trafficking more frequently. A short time ago, a young woman told me, “Sister, I recently saw an offer of work online. I remembered what you had told us, and I looked to see if it was true. Two days later, the feature had disappeared. It was all lies”.

Sr Benjamine concluded: “We are very close to the people and work with them. We are dealing with a vulnerable population, and we must involve them in the search for solutions so that they can make some progress. When I end a workshop with young people, I ask them: “Now what shall we do? What will I do to spread the conclusions of this workshop?” Sometimes they want to do something in particular but do not know what. Then I ask them for their ideas, and we discuss them together. Many groups call me to tell me of their activities and encourage me to continue my work. This is what, in the final analysis, our Founder Saint Daniel Comboni wanted: “to form leaders and build up the local church”.” (R.S.)

It may be a small and insignificant place but Tumaco, in the south west of the country, has its ‘importance’ on the world stage: the city is the largest producer with 19,546 hectares under cultivation, 11% of the country’s production. In recent years, it has held the dubious record of the city with the most murders in the Latin American region.

The Comboni Missionaries first went to Tumaco in 2004 with the aim of accompanying a country inhabited mostly by African Colombians in an area of armed conflict. As soon as they arrived, they settled in the outskirts of the city in a parish of displaced people who had left their homelands due to the violence of armed groups.
Tumaco territory was unfamiliar to most Colombians but has recently become well known for its violence and drug trafficking.  It is not only far from the large centres of Colombian power, it is also anthropologically distant: the African Colombian population lives there, having been marginalised and excluded for many centuries.

Some decades ago, they began to take part in the political, social, and economic spheres of the country. The first reason for this is that they are not a minority but represent 20% of the population; the second is that they are increasingly entering areas formerly designated for whites only. Also, within the Church, the Afro American people have gained strength in a lengthy process of inculturation and respect. Progress has been made recently after centuries of marginalisation and repression. Colombia, however, has not yet an African Colombian bishop.
The diocese of Tumaco is vast with few access roads. Most of the region is accessed by sea using the rivers flowing into the Pacific. The rural communities have no electricity, water supply or basic services. The schools are few and far between and there are no well-run health centres. The seriousness of the situation emerged with the Coronavirus. Uncounted thousands of infected people fell victim to the virus.

Father Daniele Zarantonello, a comboni missionary.

Since the year 2000, various paramilitary groups have competed for the territory using the threat of arms to control the drugs trafficking, provoking many victims.
The Combonis chose to live in an existential periphery and this has put them to the test. Father Daniele Zarantonello who has lived in Tumaco for 17 years tells us: “It is hard to see signs of progress from the human or pastoral point of view; it is hard to speak to young people about ‘dreams’ when the situation does not allow them to dream. It is a complex matter to think of making investments or setting up social projects when one will be immediately subject to extortion by armed groups. We have chosen a different way of being here: we are a presence, a light and we are also the ‘anonymous resistance’.”
At least 271 leaders of the community in Colombia have been killed since the peace accord was implemented early in 2017, while armed groups continue to force their way into territory abandoned by the FARC, especially in Tumaco. Many have been killed while trying to defend their territory against mega-projects (palm oil, oil, gold, timber, water) or for having dared to dream of a land free of narco-trafficking. It was the instigators of those projects who brought the paramilitaries to Tumaco – unscrupulous mercenaries who for years have violated an entire nation.

At the service of the Local Church
Father Zarantonello recalls when he first went to Tumaco: “We wanted the people and the country to be the inspiration for our presence here. We therefore began to organise a parish with all it structures.  Over the years, we created three youth centres in the more violent quarters of the parish. In the Viento Libre quarter, together with the leaders of the family groups, a small school was created to work in the field of ‘education in a time of emergency’. The project is entitled ‘Educating on the Streets of Viento Libre’ and aims at accompanying the more problematic and vulnerable children.

After the paramilitaries left the area, we began to work with the leaders of the community in the Panama quarter to set up a ‘small trade school’, also providing school classes, personalised accompaniment, and formation in Christian and community values using the pedagogy of tenderness, skills, dancing, music, and art.
In the Nuevo Milenio quarter, we created an African Colombian Youth Centre. It is a meeting point for the quarter providing formation in spirituality, culture and peace using dance, music, a library, youth groups, catechesis, family groups, the Sunday celebration of the Eucharist and the ‘Afropacífico’ football school.
The parish church is located in the El Carmelo quarter and there we have organised the Saint Daniel Comboni youth Centre with a library, school assistance, an internet room, a group of extraordinary women and the singing group Buen Vient.
They sing their lullabies that speak of the problems of the community and the hope and faith with which they face them. We provide spiritual assistance to everyone who comes to the parish with all the required catechesis, family groups, devotional groups and movements”.
Besides the parish work, the Combonis seek to accompany the diocese of Tumaco by reinforcing the coordination (EDAP, College of Consultors, Vicariates) and some pastoral areas (catechesis, youth and vocational ministry and social media).

Fr. Zarantonello continues: “It is our wish to reach the human existential peripheries where ‘life cries out’, as the Latin American Confederation of Religious (CLAR) says. We therefore try to reach the rural areas of our diocese regularly, visiting them and keeping in touch by means of the diocesan radio ‘Mira’, or by promoting three-monthly courses of formation for animators and catechists”.
The missionary concludes: “All these activities involve many people, and we are not afraid of hard work because, in every ambit and every project, we are always small communities of faith and action. The whole orientation of our work is to create a committed community of lay people within a Local Church that is both missionary and prophetic”.  (D.Z.)