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This Sunday is the International Day of Prayer and Awareness against Human Trafficking. Modern Slavery is taking place across the world, including in our Diocese, it is a human rights violation which has very serious consequences for the health and wellbeing of survivors with victims often hidden away, unable to leave their situation, or reticent to come forward because of fear or shame.

St Josephine Bakhita (1869-1947) is the patron saint of victims of human trafficking. She was kidnapped aged 7 and bought and sold many times, first in Sudan where she was born and then in Italy. St Josephine’s body was mutilated by those who enslaved her, but they did not destroy her spirit. She gained civic freedom in  Italy in 1889, was baptised in 1890, and entered the Institute of St Magdalene of Canossa in 1893, making her profession three years later.

In 1902, she was transferred to the city of Schio (northeast of Verona), where she assisted her religious community by cooking, sewing, embroidery, and welcoming visitors. The first steps toward her beatification began in 1959, she was beatified in 1992, and canonized eight years later.

The United Nations International Labour Organisation estimates that the global profit from Human Trafficking and Modern Slavery is £185 billion, making it the second most profitable worldwide criminal enterprise after the illegal arms trade. Today, an estimated 1 in 4 victims of modern slavery are children, with thousands of people falling into the hands of human traffickers and becoming unpaid modern-day slaves in their own countries and abroad.

Catholic social teaching calls us both to tend to the immediate needs of those harmed by exploitation and oppression and to name and work to dismantle the structural causes - which include poverty. To access CSAN resources for this Sunday click here.

The Diocese supports an ecumenical volunteer network of Anti-Slavery Ambassadors in partnership with the Anglican Diocese of Chichester. To find out more, visit our website.

Sources: Franciscan Media and CSAN