MORNING MASS IN THE CHAPEL OF THE DOMUS SANCTAE MARTHAE HOMILY OF HIS HOLINESS POPE FRANCIS

[…] Throughout history we have read about the brutality inflicted on slaves:
they were brought from Africa to America – I think of that history that touches
my own land – and we say, “What barbarism!” But there are many slaves today
too, many men and women who are not free to work; they are forced to work in
order to survive, nothing more. They are slaves: it is forced labour. It is forced
labour, unjust, ill-paid, and which leads men and women to live with their dignity
trampled underfoot. There are many, many throughout the world. Many. In the
newspapers a few months ago we read, in a country in Asia, of how a man had
beaten to death an employee who earned less than half a dollar a day, because
he had done something badly. Today’s slavery is our “indignity”, because it takes
away the dignity of men, of women, all of us. “No, I work, I have my dignity”.
Yes, but your brothers and sisters do not. “Yes, Father, it is true, but this, since it
is very far away from me, I struggle to understand it. But they are among us;
yes, here among us. Think of the day workers, who are made to work for
minimum pay, and not for eight, but for twelve or fourteen hours a day: this
happens today, here. Throughout the world, and also here. I think of the
domestic worker who does not receive a fair wage, who has no social security
assistance, insurance, no pension provision: this does not only happen in Asia.
[…]