Slavery Condemned: Historical Milestone as Leaders Of Major Religions Unite to Fight Slavery

For the first time in history, leaders of the world's major religions came together at the Vatican on Tuesday to sign a declaration condemning modern slavery and urging the world to stamp out all forms of this "crime against humanity" by 2020.

In an unprecedented event, Pope Francis joined Muslim, Jewish, Hindu, Buddhist and other Christian leaders in pledging to use their religious power to help stamp out such forms of modern slavery as forced labor, debt bondage, trafficking in persons, organ trafficking, sexual exploitation for money, and forced marriage.

The leaders committed themselves to do all they could to free all the enslaved people in the world.

Last month, the Global Freedom Network's partner Walk Free released a report saying that 35.8 million people suffer from slavery, defined as the systematic deprivation of a person's liberty, and abuse of their body for personal or commercial exploitation.

"Modern slavery ... fails to respect the fundamental conviction that all people are equal and have the same freedom and dignity," the leaders' joint statement said. "We pledge ourselves here today to do all in our power, within our faith communities and beyond, to work together for the freedom of all those who are enslaved and trafficked so that their future may be restored."

Attending the ceremony were the head of the Anglican Communion, Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby, representatives of Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I, the grand imam of Egypt's Al-Azhar Mosque, Ahmed Muhammad Ahmed el-Tayeb, two rabbis, a Hindu from India, a Vietnamese Buddhist, and an Iraqi ayatollah.

Pope Francis, the leader of the world's 1.2 billion Roman Catholics, called modern slavery "an atrocious plague."

"The physical, economic, sexual and psychological exploitation of men and women, boys and girls, is chaining tens of millions of persons to inhumanity and humiliation," the Pope said in a speech before signing the joint declaration.

Pope Francis declared that "each human being – man, woman, boy or girl, is the image of God, (so) all people are equal and should be granted the same freedom and the same dignity."

"Any discriminatory relationship that does not respect the fundamental conviction that others are equal is a crime, and frequently an aberrant crime," he added.

The Pope warned that modern slavery is still growing throughout the world, noting that it often takes place "hidden behind closed doors, in private households, in the streets, in cars, factories, fields, fishing boats and in many other places."

He said the world must provide help to enslaved people such as abandoned elderly persons, workers and refugees caught in evil practices, men or women victimized by the sex trade or lured into prostitution, or children "mutilated" for their organs.

All of them, the Pope said, "call on our consciences by echoing the voice of the Lord: I assure you that every time they did it to one of my brothers, they did it to me."

"We are all a reflection of the image of God and we are convinced that we cannot tolerate that the image of the living God is subjected to the most aberrant trafficking," he said.

The Walk Free report said South Asia has the largest number of people in slave conditions: an estimated 17.5 million people.

Even in the U.S. there are about 61,000 people in slave conditions, the report said.

The International Labor Organization, a U.N. agency dedicated to labor issues, estimates that forced labor generates profits equivalent to $150 billion each year.

The Global Freedom Network said modern slavery can be addressed by mobilizing faith communities, examining business supply chains to ensure ethical products, more care for victims and survivors of slavery, legal reforms and better enforcement, and more education about the crimes.

The anti-slavery effort is using the social media hashtag #EndSlavery.