Because she could speak Spanish, Cafiso had been brought to the prison to speak to a Colombian woman lost and locked up in Bangkok. Over the course of their meeting, Cafiso heard the story of one of about 800,000 people a year who are trafficked across borders — about 90 per cent of them women and mostly for sexual exploitation, according to the United States Department of State Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons.

“We spoke through the bars,” said Cafiso. “It was such a moving story that we were both holding each others’ hands through the bars, through the grate, crying.”

The Colombian woman with two children back home had been deceived by what appeared to be a legitimate travel and employment agency. She had been promised a job working for a family in Hong Kong. Instead she was flown to a hotel in Singapore to work as a prostitute. When she tried to refuse, the traffickers warned that they knew where her children and her family live.

In the run-up to the Vancouver Winter Olympics in 2010, Catholic organizations ranging from the Catholic Women’s League and the Canadian Religious Conference to the bishops of British Columbia and the Yukon have launched efforts to prevent an uptick in human trafficking. For years traffickers have recognized the business opportunity represented by thousands of tourists descending on large-scale sports events like the Olympics.

In a Feb. 11 statement the west coast bishops pledged their support to young people caught in the international sex trade.

“We promise you pastoral care, and we will continue to work with all people of good will to ensure that your human dignity is always respected,” said the bishops.

But the problem of human trafficking is not limited to the 2010 Winter Olympics or Vancouver. In Toronto the School Sisters of Notre Dame, with help from Our Lady of Lourdes parish, Canadian Jesuits International and the Canadian Religious Conference, is staging a “Not For Sale Trade Show” at Regis College. The event is part of an Ontario tour March 15 to 20 that will take author David Batstone from King’s College at London’s University of Western Ontario to the Bronson Centre in Ottawa. Batstone’s book Not For Sale has spawned the “Not For Sale Campaign” which tackles human trafficking in the United States.

At the same time the Canadian Religious Conference has launched an education kit aimed at high school students, trying to ensure young people know how to spot warning signs for human trafficking.

“Most of the people trafficked are between the ages of 14 and 28,” said Canadian Religious Conference fieldworker David Bouchard.

Bouchard promotes the set of three 60-minute lesson plans to Catholic teachers and school boards across Canada. The education kit fits perfectly with any religious studies class, he said.

“It’s a moral issue more than anything else. When we look at church teaching and the way that we talk about human dignity and the way each person should be treated, that’s where we recognize the importance of rescuing those who are held captive,” he said.

Campaigners against human trafficking notched a small victory Feb. 27 when Conservative backbencher Joy Smith got her private members’ bill through second reading and on to committee. Smith’s bill would set a minimum sentence of five years for anyone convicted of trafficking a minor.

Human trafficking has only been a separate category in Canada’s criminal code since 2005. There have been two convictions, and there are 12 more cases pending.

University of British Columbia law professor Benjamin Perrin claims the sentences handed down in both cases were inadequate and set a bad precedent. In the first case a man found guilty of exploiting a girl from the time she was 15 to 18 and earning $360,000 renting her out, then luring a 14-year-old foster child with fetal alcohol syndrome and advertising her on Craig’s List, was given a three-year sentence less time served. A second case involving a 17-year-old in Montreal netted the trafficker a two-year sentence. After deducting the time served awaiting trial and during trial, the trafficker was free one week after he was convicted.

“We’ve set a precedent in Canada now where if you traffic a child you will get a slap on the wrist,” Smith told The Catholic Register just after her bill passed second reading.

But Smith concedes her bill won’t actually prevent the crime. More needs to be done for victims, said Smith.

“We need to have places where they can be rehabilitated, where they can be trained, where they can be shown how they can get a different kind of job — and they certainly need to be counselled,” she said.

More awareness will help curb the trade, said Sr. Celeste Reinhart of the School Sisters of Notre Dame .

“It is really important that all of us learn that Canada is actually a country of origin, destination and transit,” said Reinhart, who acts as a resource person on the issue for her community.

As a religious sister, Reinhart feels Catholics particularly need to understand human trafficking and sexual exploitation from the point of view of their church’s basic teaching.

“If slavery is OK then practically everything is OK,” she said. “It strikes at the heart of human dignity.”

To prevent the crime means getting at the supply and demand behind the trade, said Bouchard.

“We have to continually talk to men and say, ‘Quit doing that.’ ”

It’s also important to understand the social and economic drivers of the trade, said Cafiso.

“If you look at most of the countries where there is slavery, or where people are trafficked from, they are Third World countries.”

(With files from The B.C. Catholic .)