Pope Francis convinces religious leaders to join him in ambitious pledge to end slavery by 2020

Pope Francis has convinced several prominent religious leaders to join him in a public pledge to end worldwide slavery by 2020. The goal is certainly ambitious, but it is one that we must set and strive to achieve.

LOS ANGELES, CA (Catholic Online) - There are as many as 37 million slaves in the world today, more than at any other time in history. Pope Francis has long spoken harshly about people who enslave others, and has risked backlash from criminal overlords, including the Italian Mafia, by condemning their human trafficking activities.

Now, Pope Francis has convinced other religious leaders from around the world to join him in signing a pledge to help eliminate human trafficking by 2020. In this ambitious goal, Pope Francis is joined by leaders of the Hindu, Buddhist, Jewish and Islamic schools of faith.

Light a candle against human trafficking today. Now is the time for us to unite in prayer against this evil.

The pledge commits each religious leader to do all they can, within their power, to eliminate the scourge of human trafficking.

"In the eyes of God, each human being is a free person." the pledge reads.

The ceremony took place in the Vatican gardens, and added several more people to the list of religious leaders opposed to human trafficking. Already on the list is Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, who signed the pledge as the leader of the Anglican Communion.

Most faiths abhor slavery and condemn it in the modern age. Notably outstanding are some strains of Islam, such as that followed by the Islamic State, which is deliberately enslaving Christians and Yazidi minorities in Iraq and Syria.

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