8 FEBRUARY: St. Josephine Bakhita
DAY OF PRAYER AND AWARENESS AGAINST HUMAN TRAFFICKING
Josefina Bakhita
In this world in which we live, human trafficking has become alarming and that is why, on the day of St. Josephine Bakhita, the Pope asks us to reflect on today's slavery, in which millions of people - especially children and women - are treated as objects, bought and sold, being robed of their dignity and rights and made slaves, subject to exploitation and violence.
Josefina Bakhita was a slave who became a saint. She was just a child, when her village was attacked, her mother killed and herself taken as a slave. The trauma was so great that she forgot her name, being called simply by the name given by her masters, Bakhita, which means the lucky one. Later, bought by the Italian consul in Sudan, she was taken to Italy, where she experienced the love of Christ, was baptised, became a free woman, and then entered religious life.
The story of the abducted girl
As we celebrate the feast of St. Josephine Bakhita, it came to my mind the story of a Zambian little girl who attended the church in Lubengele Parish in Chililabombwe. One day, the mother came with her to ask for a Thanksgiving Mass because her nine-year-old girl had escaped from the hands of a kidnapper.
One morning, she heard a knock on the door and went to open it. A man asked about her mother, and when she replied that she had gone to the market, he introduced himself as her uncle, her mother's brother, explaining that it was the first time he had come to visit the family and so she did not know him yet. Without the least suspicion and full of joy, she accepted the invitation to take a walk while her mother was in the market. Immediately, they crossed the neighbourhood and went to the main road that goes to Lubumbashi in Congo. He picked up a lift and made his way to the nearest town, twenty-five kilometres far away. Afraid to pass through the middle of the town, he got off the truck and passed through the farthest districts, having entered a market and bought new clothes for the girl. After ordering her to change the clothes, they entered the main road again and got another lift, heading for Ndola, about a hundred kilometres away. When they arrived, he went to a bar and began to drink, ignoring the girl who asked for water. The people in the bar, realising that there was something wrong, asked her who he was and what was going on. Understanding the situation, they called the police, who arrested the kidnapper.
Seeing how fortunate her daughter had been, the mother wanted to thank God for the protection she had received. Cases like this happen a little all over the world, as many children disappear kidnapped and then sold as slaves, many of them becoming sex slaves or end ing up killed to sell their organs or to use parts of their body in witchcraft.
Human trafficking
According to Wikipedia, " Human trafficking is the trade of humans, most commonly for the purpose of sexual slavery, forced labor, or commercial sexual exploitation for the trafficker or others. This may encompass providing a spouse in the context of forced marriage, or the extraction of organs or tissues, including for surrogacy and ova removal. Human trafficking can occur within a country or trans-nationally. Human trafficking is a crime against the person because of the violation of the victim's rights of movement through coercion and because of their commercial exploitation. Human trafficking is the trade in people, and does not necessarily involve the movement of the person from one place to another.
According to the International Labour Organisation (ILO), forced labor alone (one component of human trafficking) generates an estimated $150 billion in profits per annum as of 2014. In 2012, the ILO estimated that 21 million victims are trapped in modern-day slavery. Of these, 14.2 million (68%) were exploited for labor, 4.5 million (22%) were sexually exploited, and 2.2 million (10%) were exploited in state-imposed forced labor.
Human trafficking is thought to be one of the fastest-growing activities of trans-national criminal organizations."
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_trafficking)
The following maps give an idea of the extent of human trafficking in the world.
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