Bishop Libby Lane is today launching a campaign against human trafficking, her first official engagement since becoming the Church of England's first female bishop.
Lane, who was consecrated last month, is visiting Manchester Airport to raise awareness of the issue. Staff will be given training on the identification of at-risk passengers as part of the Travel Safe Week initiative in partnership with Border Force, the airport chaplaincy and local organisations who work with victims.
Speaking to Sky News this morning, Bishop Lane said the training would allow staff to "be alert to...those indications that perhaps relationships between people are not all that they seem, and to be able to spot the signs that people are at risk and are vulnerable.
"We hope that the publicity and the information in and around the airport will give those people the courage and hope to be able to turn to those...who may be able to help them."
Bishop Lane branded human trafficking "a growing and very significant problem," adding that faith communities "and all those that work for good across the world" are working urgently to address it.
"The scale of it is something that's very difficult to identify because so much of it is hidden," she said. "But last year at a gathering in Rome for faith leaders...the Archbishop of Canterbury identified that perhaps up to 30 million people across the world at any time are being exploited in human trafficking".
"That perhaps is only the tip of the iceberg," she warned.
Justin Welby and Pope Francis last year backed the Global Freedom Network – a landmark initiative that will see the Anglican and Catholic Churches unite to combat modern slavery and human trafficking.
"Evil will thrive if humanity stands by and does nothing while the most vulnerable suffer at the hands if traffickers and slavers," Welby has said.
An estimated two million fall victim to sexual trafficking each year, and a further 20,000 are forced to give up an organ. Figures indicate that there could be as many as 10,000 slaves in the UK alone.
"We are now being challenged...to find more profound ways of putting our ministry and mission where our faith is; and being called into a deeper unity on the side of the poor and in the cause of the justice and righteousness of God," the Archbishop said in a statement last March.
