Human Trafficking is a modern slavery. This is happening in the world where people can be blindsided by how we are all participating. It can be happening within one's home or in the school, and even how we patronize the products we buy. Are we buying items that give back to what is fair to the workers? Are the workers being paid little without benefits so that the items you are eyeing online can be cheap maximizing the value of your savings. This is the importance of being aware of our involvement in capitalism where the prizes need to be low which is good for competition but not to strip off the dignity of another individual to be fulfilled and compensated for his or her work. There are also pornographic materials to which the youth, and vulnerable people are subjected, being forced to do something beyond their conscience and disregarding the respect that any human being deserves with the use of fear and coercion.
One of the ways we can help end this is by advocacy so that no person will have to be trapped and for those who are in this forced servitude, we are here to let them know that there have been people who were able to leave their traffickers and rebuild their lives.
Saint Bakhita is the patron saint of trafficked victims and survivors. During her time, she was sold several times and finally found refuge with the religious congregation. She did not want to go back to the family she was sold for service. Everyone is invited to our Annual Virtual Bilingual Prayer Service on the Feast of Saint Bakhita, February 8, 2025 6:30PM. This is the designated feast of Saint Bakhita. The Justice, Peace, and Integrity of Creation will be hosting this service with hope that we can reflect on what action to take and also spread this invitation for others to know and take action as well.
Below is the invitation to (1) bring a pair of shoes as a symbol of human trafficking and (2) pray, listen, and reflect with us by signing in to https://christushealthvideo.zoom.us/j/95327154834
It is a hope that through this webinar, you can learn something to take and advocate for the cause. It might also inspire you with something that you might have not thought of. When we have hope for a better and just world, it moves us to take action so that a person does not have to suffer the loss of dignity, respect, and justice that every human being deserves to live with.
Pope Francis's encyclical Fratelli Tutti's article188 captures this message as an invitation for the political and social systems to be aware of human rights. Raising this awareness, the politicians become responsible for combatting the structure and the unjust practices that exploit vulnerable and innocent individuals through human trafficking. These unjust practices, greed, and selfish and unchecked desires, a person in need becomes a means or instrument for organ sale, prostitution, crime, and disordered desire for more. When we desire what other people have or the goal becomes toward disordered ambitions stepping on other people's dignity, we missed to respect humanity. Every individual belongs to a society. An individual can be part of a just system or can take its position to be just by being an informed member of such systems to be able to uphold and live the right standards. Consciences must be formed according to the recognition that everybody has basic human rights. Our institutional and political systems must be responsible and effective in taking advantage of their academic, social, and technological strengths. The advances in technology and science are not to hinder the protection and preservation of these rights. These are to look into reality, searching for pragmatic solutions to be in communion and to be more human, beyond the fears and restrictive mindsets that are unproductive.
Report Human Trafficking through the National Human Trafficking Hotline 1-888-373-7888 or through text messaging Text* 233733.
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