The International Day of Prayer against Trafficking instituted on 8 February 2015
Pope Frances has strongly denounced many times the trafficking of human beings, defining it as «a crime against humanity» and calling on all to fight and looking after the victims. Responding to the Holy Father’s plea the Pontifical Council of Pastoral Care of Migrants and Itinerant People, the International Union of Superiors General (UISG and USG) and the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace announced an
INTERNATIONAL DAY OF PRAYER & AWARENESS
AGAINST HUMAN TRAFFICKING
The First International Day will be celebrated in all dioceses and parishes in the world, in the groups and schools.
8 FEBRUARY 2015, the Feast Day of Josephine Bakhita, a Sudanese slave, freed, who became a Canossian nun, was declared a Saint in 2000.
The third International Day of Prayer and Awareness against Trafficking in Persons will be celebrated on February 8, 2017, with the theme:
“They are children! Not slaves!”
This event is celebrated on the Feast day of Saint Josephine Bakhita, who was kidnapped and sold into slavery in Sudan and later became a Canossian Sister. In many places throughout the world this day is observed as a Day of Prayer and fasting for Victims of Trafficking and for those who work to combat it.
Pope Francis has stated “Human Trafficking is a crime against humanity.” “It’s a disgrace” that people are treated “as objects, deceived, raped, often sold many times for different purposes and, in the end, killed or, in any case, physically and mentally damaged, ending up thrown away and abandoned,” he said. (Source: Catholic news Services Dec 12, 2013)
“You may choose to look the other way but you can never say again that you did not know” said William Wilberforce, an English politician, philanthropist, theologian and a leader of the movement to abolish the slave trade who lived in the XVIII/XIX century.
AnaStpaul 