World Day of Peace message takes on human trafficking.

VATICAN CITY * Pope Francis on Dec. 10 made a forceful and personal plea for the end of modern-day slavery, calling on governments, communities and individuals "not to become accomplices" to human trafficking and exploitation in their myriad forms.

Issuing the annual papal message for the World Day of Peace, celebrated by the church each Jan. 1, Francis called slavery a "global phenomenon which exceeds the competence of any one community or country."

"I urgently appeal to all men and women of good will, and all those near or far, including the highest levels of civil institutions, who witness the scourge of contemporary slavery not to become accomplices to this evil, not to turn away from the sufferings of our brothers and sisters, our fellow human beings, who are deprived of their freedom and dignity" the pope writes in the message.

Francis' message for the World Day of Peace, which is dated Dec. 8, was released Dec. 10 by the Vatican and will be officially sent out Jan. 1, the Catholic feast day for the Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God.

This year, Francis dedicated his message to the issue of modern-day slavery, titling it "No Longer Slaves, but Brothers and Sisters," in reference to St. Paul's Letter to Philemon.

The Vatican released Francis' message during a press conference partly headlined by several women religious from across the world who have been working against human trafficking. They shared intense stories about how those they work with, especially women, have been treated.

"Try putting a hand over the mouth and scream," Comboni Sr. Gabriella Bottani said at the conference. "The cry is stifled, dumb, no one listens to it."

"This is one of the dynamics that we use in Brazil to speak of trafficking in persons," she said. "The hand represents a socioeconomic system that tries to hide the suffering it causes, making silent the cry of the victims."

Bottani, a native Italian who served for several years in Brazil, is the head of Talitha Kum, an international network of women religious fighting human trafficking.

Women religious, she said, "have chosen to welcome these uncomfortable voices because they tell us that this socioeconomic system is a huge human racket. The suffering of the victims delegitimizes the roots of power built on profit."

In his World Day of Peace message, Francis highlights in particular global laborers, migrants, prostitutes, forced soldiers and hostages, who "are deprived of freedom and are forced to live in conditions akin to slavery" Reissuing a frequent critique he has made of the process of economic globalization--that it leads to a "globalization of indifference" to the struggles of peoples around the world--Francis calls for a new global atmosphere. "The globalization of indifference, which today burdens the lives of so many of our brothers and sisters, requires all of us to forge a new worldwide solidarity and fraternity capable of giving them new hope and helping them to advance with courage amid the problems of our time and the new horizons which they disclose and which God places in our hands," the pope writes.