Pope Francis First Pope to Commission Investigation into Human Trafficking

Margaret Archer has long been one of the world’s leading sociologists, recognized for her analysis of societal structure with awards and professorships.

Thanks to a note scribbled in Spanish from Pope Francis, the British academic is also an activist, sheltering victims of human trafficking in her English home with the help of her parish.

The note that inspired Archer to move beyond the theoretical to take concrete steps to help individual victims of trafficking came from Francis to the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences after his election in 2013.

As the academy had done after previous papal elections, it sent Francis a letter of congratulations, asking if he wanted them to investigate a particular issue. To the same query, Pope John Paul II and Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI told the academy to carry on as before.

But with Pope Francis — the third pope Archer has served since joining the Vatican-based think tank in 1994 and becoming its president a year later — it was different. He sent a hand-written note with a specific request, urging the academy to study the problem of human trafficking.

The papal request led to a series of conferences examining trafficking of peoples throughout the world but it also led to Archer’s realization that she could no longer do this work only on an intellectual level. She felt herself drawn to involve herself personally…