The feast day of St. Josephine Bakhita, survivor and patron saint of human trafficking victims, on February 8th, shines a light on the ongoing crisis of human trafficking. 

In 2015, Pope Francis introduced this day as the International Day of Prayer and Awareness against Human Trafficking. 

Talitha Kum, a worldwide network led by religious sisters combatting human trafficking, arranged a week-long schedule of events around Rome, to raise awareness of the problem. 

Sister Abby Avelino, the international coordinator for Talitha Kum, explains that the attack on human dignity is happening at a much bigger scale than we could ever imagine: 

“Human trafficking as you know is a hidden crime, but according to the report, the UNODC report, there is an estimated 50 million living in modern day slavery or human trafficking, 12 million of these are children. It’s still the victims of human trafficking. So, this is how big the crime is and there’s a lot of forms of human trafficking especially sexual exploitation, labour exploitation, child marriages, organ removal, these are the forms of human trafficking.” 

Pauline Akinyi Juma, survivor and mother of three, lives to tell the story of how there is hope after abuse, as foundress of “Rebirth of a Queen.” 

She has found new creation in her Christian faith and healing in becoming a mother, even when two of her children came as a result of her abuse, telling EWTN: 

“I went through sexual abuse at the age of 16, at the age of 19 I went through domestic violence, at the age of 23 I went through labour exploitation which also involved sexual exploitation.” 

She also shares, “Something that really gives me courage: I write a lot of poetry, I pray a lot when I can’t talk to anyone, I take a chair and put it in front of me and tell God I’m here! Now tell me what you want us to do, this is a partnership between me and you, what can we do?” 

“I do this for my children,” she says, “I do this so that they never have to see a world that I saw, they never have to go abused. I don’t know, but my children are just my heroes, [they] are my little heroes.” 

Multiple groups of volunteers, young people and survivors gathered outside the Basilica of Santa Maria in Trastevere to perform a flash mob, drawing public attention and speaking up for those who are silent. 

Mary Mugo is a Talitha Kum Youth Ambassador from Kenya. Present at the flash mob, she emphasizes, “I want to say that human trafficking happens everywhere, it’s all about us as a community, to understand what human trafficking is, because it’s happening next door and we actually don’t know about it.” 

Another Talitha Kum Youth Ambassador from Japan Crystal Eileen shares, “What God always tells us, to be an instrument of his love, to be an instrument of spreading his mercy to everyone. I think it’s really important for us, the believers especially, to be an instrument for other people.” 

Also present, Wael from the Jesuit Refugee Service highlights, “We are responsible to keep talking about it, we should always consider ourselves on the other part. So, if we are lucky and we are not abused by trafficking, at least, we should say their name, we should stand with them.” 

The demonstration was followed by an ecumenical prayer vigil, encouraging all Christians to pray for strength and endurance in what can feel like a constant uphill battle against evil. 

Human trafficking takes many forms that people overlook. One on the rise that may not be familiar to many is the modern practice of surrogacy. 

Italy is one of the few countries that considers surrogacy not only illegal but punishes it as a crime. 

Professor of Philosophy of Law, Laura Palazzani from Rome’s LUMSA University, believes that some cases of surrogacy should be classified as human trafficking. 

She explains, “It depends on what’s the meaning of human trafficking, if you consider human trafficking, a sort of exploitation of a vulnerable person and a commercialization of a body of a vulnerable person, it can be considered in some circumstances. If you think about the use of surrogacy in some countries, such as Africa for example, where there are baby farms, where there are women that are not really aware of what they are doing and they are exploited, I would say it is a sort of human trafficking.” 

For Pope Francis it’s more of a moral issue than legal. He considers it a violation of human dignity, calling it despicable and deplorable. 

Palazzani notes, “The last document was ‘Dignitas Infinita,’ where Pope Francis talked about the meaning, the intrinsic meaning, of the dignity of a human being. There is a paragraph dedicated to the applications, and in the applications he talks about human trafficking and also on surrogacy. And in that paragraph there is strong evidence made on the dignity of the woman and the dignity of the child.” 

Pope Francis welcomed Talitha Kum at the Vatican during their meeting, praising their work and encouraging them to turn to St. Bakhita as their source of strength and reason to hope that there is freedom at the end of suffering. 

Zofia Czubak contributed to this piece.

Adapted by Jacob Stein 

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