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SECAM-SCEAM CCEE
Symposium of Episcopal Conferences of Africa and Madagascar Consilium Conferentiarum Episcoporum Europae
Symposium des Conférences Episcopales d’Afrique et Madagascar
Simposio delle Conferenze episcopali di Africa e Madagascar Council of European Bishops’ Conferences
Rat der Europäischen Bischofskonferenzen
Simpósio das Conferências Episcopais da Africa e Madagascar Consiglio delle Conferenze Episcopali Europee
4 Senchi Street, Airport Residential Area
P.O. Box KA 9156, Airport Gallusstrasse, 24
Accra, Ghana CH - 9000 St. Gallen
Tel: +223 21 77 88 67/8 Fax: +233 21 77 25 48 Tel: +41 71 227 60 40 Fax: +41 71 227 60 41
E-mail: secamsec@4u.com.gh
E-mail: ccee@ccee.ch
Home-page: www.sceam-secam.org
Home-page: www.ccee.ch
Your Excellency President of Africa Union,
President of the Republic of Ghana, Mr John KUFUOR
Your Excellency President of Council of European Union,
Prime Minister of Portugal, Mr José Socrates Carvalho Pinto De Sousa
Your Excellencies, Heads of State and Governments of Africa and Europe
18 November 2007
Your Excellencies Presidents
Your Excellencies, Heads of State and Governments
This year the world commemorates the 200th Anniversary of the Abolition of Chattel Slavery. We Catholic Bishops drawn from the Symposium of Episcopal Conferences of Africa and Madagascar (SECAM) and from the Council of European Bishops’ Conferences (CCEE) have been meeting from 13th to 18th November 2007 in Ghana at Elmina which has one of the slave forts and is marked by the wounds of the slave trade. As a result of our prayerful reflections on “Slavery and New Slaveries”, we address to you the following urgent message.
We are very happy to hear of your second meeting as Heads of State from Africa and Europe in Lisbon, Portugal, and we are aware that the main thrust of your deliberations is EU-Africa partnership strategy. We commend this development of partnership and your attempts at developing strategies for collaboration between our continents with a clear priority for the well being of all.
Slavery still persists today, and in more subtle ways, such as in the treatment of migrants and migrant workers, child labour, women and child trafficking, etc. The vast majority of African migrants leave home because they lack the wherewithall to live. If the partnership between Europe and Africa is to bring about social justice and peaceful integral human development for all, we urgently call on you to address the evils of these new forms of slavery in our times. We hope that your deliberations will enable you to listen to each other, but especially to heed the voice of the poor, both in Africa and Europe.
Therefore we would like you to address the following, which we have discussed at length, and now recommend to you and your ministers for action:
• To eradicate the growing problem of child labor and human trafficking, of sex abuse and the exploitation of women and children. This is truly a scandal.
• To eliminate the continuing exploitation of Africa’s resources and its consequences. The selective recruitment and migration of workers to Europe is a threat to the unity of many families. The “brain drain” of Africa’s professionals such as doctors, nurses, entrepreneurs and other highly qualified personnel, and the loss of Africa’s mineral and natural wealth in foreign owned extractive industries, are issues of highest concern to us.
• To reverse the actual trend of exploitation. This requires that the governments of Africa and Europe ratify, implement and enforce the various Conventions already accepted and ensure that the needed legislation to make them effective is in place.
• To strive for greater progress in meeting the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and fulfill pledges of financial aid that are too often not honoured.
• To practise good governance, probity, accountability and transparency, promotion of democracy, education for all, the rule of law and the fight against corruption. As the New Partnership for African Development (NEPAD) has highlighted, each is an important condition for the achievement of sustainable development and, consequently, a curtailment of migration.
• To acknowledge that migrants contribute to the development of their host countries and their remittances play a substantial economic role in the welfare of families in their countries of origin. As Catholic Bishops we believe that, a warm and humane welcome for the stranger is a fundamental value of all humanity and in accord with the Gospel message of Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.
As leaders of large Christian communities in Europe and Africa, we write in communion and solidarity with each other and in the hope of a just, peaceful, prosperous and equal partnership between Europe and Africa.
We assure Your Excellency and your colleague Heads of State and Governments of our commitment to intensify our work for a more just relationship between Africa and Europe and for a more peaceful world.
May Jesus Christ, the Prince of Peace guide you and your colleagues in your deliberations!
Signed at Elmina, 18th November 2007
Cardinal Adrien Théodore Sarr Cardinal Josip Bozanic
Archbishop of Dakar (Senegal) Archbishop of Zagabria (Croatia)
Presidency of SECAM Presidency of CCEE
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