Thanks to the documentary "Love" and the testimony, narrated in a video-message, of a girl who left the streets of Freetown to learn a trade and become a protagonist of her life, the Salesians showed the good practices carried out to steal the girls away from the streets, and the successes that education can offer in countries like Sierra Leone, Benin and India, where child prostitution is widespread.
In addition to the young woman's testimony, at the event entitled "Girls with no name", experts of the IIMA and VIDES and of the Salesian missionary Fr Jorge Crisafulli, for years active for the most needy minors in Sierra Leone, spoke to the audience on the issue.
Sponsored by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and more than a dozen countries, the event was attended by representatives of more than fifteen countries and delegations of the UN Council.
The First Lady of Sierra Leone, Fatima Maada Bio, went specifically to New York to attend the event. In her speech, she thanked the work of the Salesians in her country, through the work "Don Bosco Fambul", and assured all that the issue will be one of her concerns and that she will do all she can to make it so also for the new government, just elected.
Fr Crisafulli spoke of the work of prevention and unconditional love for the girls: "At Don Bosco Fambul we are committed to making these girls understand that the situation in which they find themselves is not their fault, and that they can start again, dream of a better future and make their dreams come true because they are unique, wonderful, each a work of art made by God."
