2021 INTERNATIONAL DAY OF PRAYER AGAINST HUMAN TRAFFICKING

8th February is the Feast of St Josephine Bakhita, a Sudanese nun, who as a child had the traumatic experience of being a victim of human trafficking. In 2015 Pope Francis asked that this day be kept as the International Day of Prayer and Awareness against human trafficking.

The theme for 2021

The International Day of Prayer and Awareness against Human Trafficking 2021 brings into the spotlight one of the main causes of human trafficking: the dominant economic model of our time, where victims of trafficking are as “commodities” falling into the mechanisms of a globalization, ruled by financial speculation and competition spurred by below-cost pricing. Hence the need for a “structural and global” perspective of human trafficking so as to dismantle those wicked mechanisms that fuel the supply and demand of “people to exploit”, because the very heart of the economy is sick.

We are invited to pray for the victims of trafficking, for all committed to the eradication of trafficking and for those who engage in this criminal and inhuman activity.

St. Josephine Bakhita, you were sold into slavery as a child and endured untold hardship and suffering. Once liberated from your physical enslavement, you found true redemption in your encounter with Christ and his Church. O St. Bakhita, assist all those who are trapped in a state of slavery; Intercede with God on their behalf so that they will be released from their chains of captivity. Those whom people enslave, let God set free. Provide comfort to survivors of slavery and let them look to you as an example of hope and faith. Help all survivors find healing from their wounds. We ask for your prayers and intercessions for those enslaved among us. Amen. (Pope Francis, 2018)