Dear Readers of Country Squire Magazine, I trust that You are well and healthy. This week I’d like You to think of those who are enslaved and to pray for them.

From the Archbishop of Canterbury:

Slavery is all around us, but we are too blind to see it. It is in our hands, and yet we are too insensitive to touch it. The enslaved are next to us in the streets, but we are too ignorant to walk alongside them. It must not be relegated to a footnote in history. It is still a living reality in all our communities, not because we think it is acceptable, but because our sin lies in blindness and ignorance. Slavery today takes many forms and encompasses a variety of situations, including women forced into prostitution, children and adults forced to work in agriculture, domestic work, or factories and sweatshops producing goods for global supply chains, even entire families forced to work for nothing to pay off generational debts or girls forced to marry older men. The forms of slavery may differ, but they share the same essential characteristics – the coercive exploitation of the most vulnerable. People are enslaved through unpaid wages, withheld passports, physical violence, fraudulent contracts and un-repayable debt. The tragedy of slavery is that it is a human condition of our own making. It is driven by human greed and those that would make a profit from excessively cheap labour. Slavery persists for no other reason than it is highly profitable. It is one of the most profitable international criminal industries. It feeds on human vulnerability. The majority of those who find themselves enslaved come from marginalised and impoverished communities. Slavery never occurs in isolation. It takes place when the rule of law fails and when those that are vulnerable to human exploitation are offered no protection. It is nourished by chaos, conflict and natural disasters – all of which have been sadly on the rise in recent years.

I wish You a relaxing Sunday and a pleasant week to follow. God Bless You all.

God our saviour,
look on this wounded world
in pity and in power;
hold us fast to your promises of peace
won for us by your Son,
our Saviour Jesus Christ.
Amen.