{"id":27685,"date":"2016-08-13T01:53:41","date_gmt":"2016-08-13T01:53:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/pope-francis-makes-surprise-visit-to-former\/"},"modified":"2016-08-13T01:52:56","modified_gmt":"2016-08-13T01:52:56","slug":"pope-francis-makes-surprise-visit-to-former","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/pope-francis-makes-surprise-visit-to-former\/","title":{"rendered":"Pope Francis makes surprise visit to former prostitutes"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>{Pope Francis has surprised 20 former prostitutes by popping in for a visit at their safe house in Rome.}<\/p>\n<p>The women had been rescued from their pimps and are being given shelter and protection at an apartment run by a Catholic charity in Italy&#8217;s capital.<\/p>\n<p>The pontiff chatted to the women, some trafficked from Africa and elsewhere in Europe, for more than an hour.<\/p>\n<p>The 79-year-old cleric has repeatedly described human trafficking as a &#8220;crime against humanity&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>The Pope sat down with the women, including seven Nigerians, six Romanians and four Albanians, and listened to their stories of forced prostitution, the Vatican said.<\/p>\n<p>The other three in the group came from Italy, Tunisia and the Ukraine.<\/p>\n<p>They were all aged about 30 and had &#8220;suffered serious physical abuse&#8221; and now lived under protection, the Vatican said.<\/p>\n<p>Promising women jobs, traffickers bring them to Italy and other western European countries but then force them into prostitution.<\/p>\n<p>Pope Francis encouraged the former sex workers &#8220;to be strong&#8221; as they started their new lives with the help of the Pope John XXIII Community.<\/p>\n<p>The unannounced visit to the prostitutes came under what the Vatican terms the Pope&#8217;s &#8220;Fridays of Mercy&#8221;, focusing on communities that have experienced suffering.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"spip-document spip-document-14202 aligncenter\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/jpg\/_90773308_mediaitem90773306.jpg\" alt=\"The women all aged about 30 told the Pope about their lives of forced prostitution\" \/><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>{Pope Francis has surprised 20 former prostitutes by popping in for a visit at their safe house in Rome.} The women had been rescued from their pimps and are being given shelter and protection at an apartment run by a Catholic charity in Italy&#8217;s capital. The pontiff chatted to the women, some trafficked from Africa [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[100],"byline":[249],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-27685","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-religion","tag-africa","byline-bbc"],"bylines":[{"id":249,"name":"BBC","slug":"bbc","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":104}],"contributors":[{"id":249,"name":"BBC","slug":"bbc","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":104}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27685","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27685"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27685\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27685"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27685"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27685"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=27685"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=27685"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}