Pope Francis joined hands with Muslim, Jewish, Hindu, Buddhist and Christian leaders yesterday promising to use their religions to help eliminate modern slavery and human trafficking by 2020.

Pope Francis was the lead signatory of a declaration, also signed by other religious leaders like-- the head of the Anglican Communion, two rabbis, Mata Amritananandamayi of India, a Vietnamese Buddhist, an Egyptian imam and an Iraqi Ayatollah.

Patriarch Bartholomew, spiritual head of the world’s 300 million Orthodox Christians, addressed the group via a video link-up from his base in Istanbul, Turkey.

The Declaration called human trafficking, forced labor, prostitution and organ trafficking “a crime against humanity”.

“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, before signing the pledge to do “all in our power, within our faith communities and beyond” to end modern slavery.

Pope Francis the head of world’s 1.2 billion Roman Catholics called modern slavery “an atrocious plague”.

According to the 2014 Global Slavery Index,an estimated 36 million people were living as slaves, trafficked into brothels, forced into manual labor, victims of debt bondage or born into servitude.

Vatican gave unconditional support to Global Freedom Network (GFN), a multi-faith anti-slavery group to organize this event. GFN was launched in March this year at the Vatican. The signing of Declaration also coincides with the 'International Day for the Abolition of Slavery'.

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Mata Amritanandamayi sitting next to Pope Francis at the Declaration Meeting in Vatican on December 02, 2014.