CLEVELAND, Ohio – Drawing upon comparisons between Cleveland kidnapping victims Michelle Knight, Gina DeJesus and Amanda Berry and the tragic realities of human trafficking, St. Joseph Academy recently hosted Sister Anthonia Ugheighele of Nigeria for a frank discussion about efforts to end what’s become a global epidemic.
“Human trafficking is modern-day slavery, so we have got to stop it,” Sister Ugheighele said. “It’s growing fast. We have to fight to remove this evil from our society.”
As coordinator of International Partners in Mission Project of Hope/Speranza II in Castel Volturno, Italy, Sister Ugheighele, 43, works to encourage young women to leave the streets, where they have been forced into prostitution as a means of providing quick money for their abusers. Many of them come from Nigeria and Africa, but also from Ukraine and Poland. They often began as hotel or restaurant workers, or as servants in private homes, from the age of 12 or 13, she said. Her message at St. Joe’s, an all-girls school, literally hit close to home.
“We have 700 young women, and we know this is an important topic for them,” said Christian Outreach and Religious Education Ministry teacher Cathy Knittel. “I think we’ve seen it in Cleveland with those three young women. Some of our students at that time knew those girls and lived in the same neighborhood. So, this is in our own backyard.”
A member of the Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, Sister Ugheighele said what she saw upon her arrival in Italy in 2000 was shocking. Young women, who seek in Italy what they are promised will be a better life for themselves and their families back home, become the property of “sponsors,” who impose a $50,000 obligation to be worked off in degrading, abusive ways. It can take more than five years to repay the money, if the women live that long.
“Human beings were being treated like animals, like objects,” Sister Ugheighele recalled of her first days in Castel Volturno. “The sponsors tell the girls if you run away and don’t pay your money, they will kill you or members of your family. So, the girls are scared. They are beaten, violated and raped.”
Unless victims are willing to denounce their exploiters, however, Sister Ugheighele said her organization won’t help them. The Italian safe house, Casa Santa Maria, provides an environment where the abused women receive an education, counseling and the opportunity to heal.
“When you talk to them, you can hear that they have wounds inside them,” Sister Ugheighele. “Most of them that we bring to our home are no longer the same person. We help them … so that they do not go back to the streets.”
For more information about Sister Ugheighele’s mission, go to www.ipmconnect.org, or call 216-932-4082.
Source: Cleveland.com
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