Tag Archive for ‘Sr Josephine Bakhita’

8 February: Day of Prayer Against Human Trafficking

St Josephine Bakhita was born in Darfur, Sudan, in 1869. She was nine when she was kidnapped and sold as a slave, so traumatised by the experience that she could no longer remember her name. Her captors named her ‘bakhita’, which means ‘fortunate’. In 1882, she became the property of the Italian consul, whose family […]

Francis Speaks

The evil of human trafficking Trafficking represents an unjustifiable violation of the freedom and dignity of its victims, of those constitutive dimensions of the human being as willed and created by God. For this reason, it is to be considered a crime against humanity. Of this, there can be no doubt. The same gravity, by […]

19th Century Slavery Equals 20th Century Human Trafficking

Who’d have thought that an obscure saint from Italy, (who was actually Sudanese) would have any connection to Godzone? So many people come to live here so they can raise their children safely, free from abuse in all its forms and from exploitation, yes? Yeah, right! This ‘obscure’ Sudanese saint, Sr Josephine Bakhita has become […]