In honor of St. Josephine Bahkita, the Patron Saint of Trafficking Victims, an event was held at Cabrini University (Wolfington Center and Campus Ministry) entitled Cabrinian Responses to Forced Labor.
Sr. Christine Marie Baltas, MSC, began by sharing information about St. Josephine Bahkita’s life and showed a documentary about St. Bahkita. A prayer to end human trafficking and reflection followed.
Karol Brewer, of the Cabrini Action and Advocacy Coalition (CAAC), spoke on human trafficking and MSC Corporate Stances and shared information about the Cabrini Closet located at The Cottage in Radnor and the agencies with whom the CAAC collaborates.
Dr. Jerry Zurek’s ECG 100 LC class spoke about labor trafficking and shared the award-winning simulation “The Power in Your Purchase”, showing the prevalence of forced labor in our everyday purchases. The students shared a Demand the Supply chart that the Enough Project’s 2017 which examined 20 of the largest companies, as defined by market capitalization, in two of the industries which consume the most tin, tungsten, tantalum, and gold: consumer electronics and jewelry retail.
To read full article: https://enoughproject.org/reports/demand-the-supply.
Dr. Zurek’s students also provided a moving simulation depicting the lives of labor trafficked victims – child slaves digging the minerals used in technology, child slaves picking cocoa beans for chocolate and young women sewing our clothes in sweatshops – how they came to be trafficked and those who traffic them. The class plans to share it with high schools throughout the Philadelphia Archdiocese.
