The Liaison Bishop for the migrants, refugees, and human trafficking office of the Southern African Catholic Bishops Conference (SACBC) has called on pastoral
agents to stop working in silos and collaborate with other religious groups and organisations in welcoming, protecting, promoting, and integrating migrants and refugees into the host communities.

Pastoral agents in Botswana, Eswatini, and South Africa met at the Lumko Conference and Retreat Centre from August 19 to 22 for a training workshop on ‘leadership’. The four-day workshop aimed at “providing leadership skills to effectively engage in welcoming and assisting migrants, refugees, and asylum seekers in Southern Africa.”

In his presentation, Bishop Joseph Mary Kizito focused on the ‘church’s response to migration’ from the Pontificate of Pope Leo XIII to Pope Francis. He recalled how Pope Leo XIII “established national parishes in the host countries,” and his call for priests and religious to “attend to migrants.’ Bishop Kizito encouraged pastoral agents to learn from the various Popes and how they used and continue to use Vatican radio to speak to all people of God including migrants and refugees.

With the merging of the SACBC migrants and refugees’ office and the human trafficking office, pastoral agents were encouraged to work with other religious and non-religious organisations such as the Jesuit Refugee Services (JRS), Lawyers for Human Rights (LHR), including sodalities and small Christian communities in raising awareness about human trafficking as well as promoting Pope Francis four migration verbs; welcome, protect, promote and integrate.

“This integration presents new challenges for dioceses in organizing the migration department,” said Bishop Kizito and called on pastoral agents to “strengthen networks with sodalities, with the education sector, with religious men and women, with Caritas, other churches, police forums, lawyers for human rights, the department of Home affairs” as well as the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) in combating human trafficking in Southern Africa. 

Other topics addressed during the four-day training workshop that saw the participation of over 40 pastoral agents from 21 dioceses including a representative from the Justice and Peace Commission of the Lesotho Catholic Bishops Conference were presentations on ‘Migration in Biblical tradition’ as well as ‘Human trafficking and smuggling’.