Pope Francis, in Bangkok, urges respect for prostitutes, victims of human trafficking

Pope Francis, speaking before a packed stadium of devoted followers in a Bangkok stadium, urged the international community to respect women and children who have been forced into prostitution or human trafficking.

Francis, 82, delivered the remarks at the tail end of his tour in Thailand, a country beloved by tourists but notorious for an unfettered sex industry and rampant human trafficking.

Francis encouraged the estimated crowd of 60,000 to help vulnerable children and women “who are victims of prostitution and human trafficking, humiliated in their essential human dignity.”

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He also called for compassion toward drug addicts, migrants and “exploited sinners and bypassed beggars.”

Francis is the first pope in 35 years – after Pope John Paull II – to visit Buddhist-majority Thailand.

He travels to Japan on Saturday, where he is scheduled to visit Hiroshima and Nagasaki – the sites devastated by U.S. atomic bombs at the end of World War II. There, he’s expected to call for a ban on “immoral” nuclear weapons.

Via AP/Fox News