Croydon University Centre Programme Leader, author and researcher Dr Pauline Aweto delivered a keynote address on Friday 5 March to an international symposium organised by Talitha Kum Rome and the Pontifical Salesian University in Italy.
Aweto addressed members and international guests at the online conference on topics of human trafficking, a subject she has explored and researched over many years of her academic career. Her keynote address focussed on strengthening human capacity against human trafficking in the era of COVID-19.
Aweto commented “There is the need to address and discourage demands that foster exploitation that leads to human trafficking; education and lack of access, a shift in values, traditions and culture that promotes and fosters gender inequality, silence and stigma”. She also called for a “focus shift from formal education to skills acquisition, entrepreneurship, apprenticeship, and harnessing the under-utilised skills of informal education cemented in the experience that African women acquire in life in their traditional roles as wives and mothers.”
