CHASTE Churches Alert to Sex Trafficking Across Europe is a charity which raises awareness across the churches in the UK of the exploitative trade of sex trafficking.
CHASTE supports those who have been trafficked in a number of ways by:
Creating co-operation across the European churches to pay attention to their Global responsibilities of pastoral care, prophetic protest and cultural leadership focused on the arena of children, young women and some men being illegally trafficked across borders for the purposes of commoditised sex. An estimated 1,420 women were trafficked into the UK in 2000 for the purposes of constrained prostitution. This has now been updated to an estimated minimum of 4,000 owing to the work undertaken by Operation Pentameter in 2006, involving all the Constabularies of the UK police force.
CHASTE, which was founded in 2004, has been working for the last 2 years with women who are escaping the clutches of the traffickers and opening up some new possibilities for life, as they recover from the deep and lasting trauma which this form of sex slavery entails.
Training
CHASTE enables churches in countries of origin, destination and transit to identify those particularly at risk to being trafficked and exploited and to develop coherent programmes to respond to the challenge. CHASTE is currently involved in training priests, chaplains, congregations and the communities they serve. We are enabling the church to address some of the wider issues which are involved in trafficking and to build the pastoral capabilities locally that are required; in both countries of origin and destination. For further details of our training please look at our resources and events pages.
Providing Protection
The CHASTE Round Table on Housing responds to the imperative of safety which all those trafficked into the UK in enslavement to a trafficker or pimp for prostitution require. Just as in Domestic Violence, it is absolutely essential for a place of safety to be available for escape from the vicious cycle of abuse to occur. CHASTE is committed to an exciting vision of releasing the churches capital of human commitment, prayerful involvement and properties into this UK wide initiative of providing safe housing for those who are seeking to escape the cycle of abuse. The CHASTE Round Table has seen the provision of two safe houses in 2006 with a third ready for completion at the beginning of January 2007. The Medaille Trust and the Salvation Army Jarrett Community have been at the forefront of this pioneering work. If you would like to get involved in this process or have a safe house project that you are moving forward please be in touch with us.
Forming Supportive Networks with churches and faith communities in countries of origin to practically support with finance, pastoral theology and training the churches’ engagement at grass roots level in the areas of combating procurement and effecting rehabilitation and reintegration of the trafficked woman/child. To this end CHASTE begun a programme of internship in countries of origin.. CHASTE is also developing a programme which will directly involve churches in source countries, to help them work on programmes of prevention and return and rehabilitation.
International Cooperation
CHASTE is supporting capacity building in networks across Churches and NGOs in Albania, Lithuania and Nigeria. Will you help us in this important work in prayer and giving?
Increasing Awareness of Sexual Trafficking and Advocating for Policy Changes by the UK Government and the EU. The CHASTE Time for Arrest campaign seeks to persuade the Government to sign the European Convention against Trafficking. This Convention would enable support to be given to survivors of trafficking. To find out more about our work in this area explore our CHASTE lobbying pages.
Undertaking Research to understand the make up of demand for trafficked people caught in prostitution in the EU, particularly in the United Kingdom and Ireland. We are developing a library of publications which enable a deeper understanding of trafficking which we invite you to explore, and if you know of other work we should be including to advise us through our contact pages. Thank you.
Working with law enforcement agencies, such as the United Kingdom Human Trafficking Centre (UKHTC) to support the suppression of trafficking and the prosecution of the perpetrators. This work particularly focuses on the provision of safe housing, counselling and victim care.
RECEIVE REGULAR UPDATES
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See the CHASTE Christmas ezine for 2006. |
