Pope Francis standing next to leaders across the religious spectrum, including his long-time friend Rabbi Abraham Skorka, pledged on Tuesday to end modern day slavery and human trafficking by 2020.
The declaration, signed by a half-dozen leaders states that “In the eyes of God, each human being is a free person, whether girl, boy, woman or man, and is destined to exist for the good of all in equality and fraternity.”
The declaration commits the signatories to do everything in their power within their faith communities to work to free the estimated 35 million people enslaved across the world by 2020.
During the signing ceremony inside the Vatican Walls, the declaration was read aloud in English by a victim of human trafficking. “Today we have the opportunity, awareness, wisdom, innovation and technology to achieve this human and moral imperative,” it read.
The UN holds this day as the International Day for the Abolition of Slavery. The pope’s official twitter account also tweeted “Slaves no more. We are all brothers and sisters,” accompanied with the hashtag “#EndSlavery.”
Back when the pope was still Jorge Mario Bergoglio, the Archbishop of Buenos Aires in Argentina, he was a close friend of Rabbi Abraham Skorka, rector of the Latin American Rabbinical Seminary in Buenos Aires. Skorka recently accompanied the pope on his trip to Israel this past May.