British pastor appointed UN special advisor

By Eron Henry and Neville Callam, Washington; Baptist World Alliance, 25 February, 2008

Washington, D.C. (BWA)--Steve Chalke, a Baptist pastor from Britain, has been appointed special advisor to the United Nation's Global Initiative to Fight Human Trafficking (UN.GIFT).

Chalke, chair of Stop the Traffik, a global coalition of some 1,000 organizations and charities in 60 countries that works to stop the buying and selling of people, will advise the UN on Community Action against Human Trafficking within the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).

UN.GIFT was launched in March 2007 by the UNODC and is managed in cooperation with the International Organization for Migration, the International Labor Organization, the UN Children's Fund, the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.

The author of more than 40 books has been a long time campaigner to end poverty through housing, healthcare and educational projects. He has become a major advocate in the anti-trafficking campaign.

"The crime of people trafficking – or, to put it in stark terms, modern slavery – for sex, forced labor and even organ harvesting is one that shames us all," Chalke said during the opening session of the first international anti-human trafficking forum held in Vienna, Austria, from February 13 to 15. The event, planned by UN.GIFT, drew 1,200 delegates from the 192-member countries of the UN.

Human trafficking is "the world's fastest growing crime," and is "a great evil" that needs to be defeated, Chalke said. Approximately 2.5 million persons, mostly aged 18 to 24, become victims of human trafficking worldwide each year, generating an estimated US$31 billion.

Chalke, described by Paul Montacute, Director of Baptist World Aid, the relief and development arm of the Baptist World Alliance (BWA), as "probably the UK's best known Baptist pastor," was one of the major speakers at the 1988 Baptist World Alliance Youth Conference in Glasgow, Scotland, and at the 1995 BWA World Congress in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Chalke also led a Focus Group at the BWA Centenary World Congress in Birmingham, England in 2005 titled an "Afternoon with Steve Chalke," with focus on "The Church – The Real Health Service and the role of the Church in building the Kingdom of God."

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