In solidarity with National Human Trafficking Awareness Month, for the week of January 9-13 Cabrini High begins each day with prayers for an end to this sinful tragedy highlighting facts about trafficking and ways we can advocate and fight against it. Yesterday, on #humantraffickingawarenessday, Cabrini students participated in a “New Year, New Dress” day, where students leverage fashion and creativity to promote the dignity of all women and raise funds for the anti-trafficking efforts of the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart and the Cabrini Mission Foundation.
The Feast Day of the Patroness of Immigrants ~ St. Frances Xavier Cabrini November 13, 2022
Mother Cabrini and Today’s Migrants
The “era of migrations” we live in has seen an unprecedented number of forcibly displaced people. Extreme poverty, persisting wars and violence, drastic climate change and natural disasters, produce millions of asylum seekers and migrants.
Image above: In 2012, the Society of the Citizens of Pozzallo partnered with Groundswell, NYC to create a mural honoring Mother Francesca Cabrini.
How to answer the plight of asylum seekers, refugees, destitute migrants, internally displace people, can be learned from the example of the saints of the migrants, special persons of vast horizons, exceptional generosity and creative insights. From the inspiration of the Gospel, such saints derived the motivation and the courage to act.
The methodology of the saints of migrants, such as St. John Neumann of Philadelphia, USA; St. Mary MacKillop of Australia; recently canonized St. Giovanni Batista Scalabrini, Piacenza, Italy; and of course, St. Frances Xavier Cabrini, who dedicated their lives and talents to their human and spiritual promotion is a useful and effective lesson for us.
particular, Mother Cabrini has articulated a dynamic approach that remains valid in the changed sociopolitical context of today. It had not been a sudden decision that pushed Mother Cabrini to plunge into the care of migrants, but a process of awareness and empathy for the needy.
The first step was a lively sense of mission. Mother Cabrini wanted to share her experience of God’s love with people in need. Analyzing the documents of the first years of activity of other Cabrini, one become quickly aware of a determined and practical personality in love with Jesus and deriving from this relationship, a creative and ready-for-action sense of mission.
The second step were evidenced in the first efforts of Mother Cabrini directed to the human and spiritual promotion of “abandoned youth”. Later, however, the plight of emigrants touched the hearts of the Sisters. The impulse to mission found a vast and urgent field of action. The education and formation of young women became a pioneering task.
third step shows the wide horizon within which Mother Cabrini was enlarging, and at the same time, consolidating her commitment to the care of people on the move. She confirms this priority after her first direct experience with the immigrants in New York City where she had arrived in 1889.
Although constantly struggling to find the economic means to start and support the multiplicity of initiatives undertaken to meet as many needs of the migrants, Mother Cabrini never stopped developing the outreach of her Institute.
As she looked at the future of immigrant communities in New Orleans, Denver, Seattle, Chicago, Mother Cabrini advocated a progressive integration into the host society. She wanted good Christians and also good citizens.
The fourth step – Mother Cabrini adopted a winning strategy, personal contact with the immigrants, a human relationship that inspired trust and love. Thus Mother and the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart visited immigrant families in their miserable tenements and cared for their children. It was not a managerial or bureaucratic approach but, rather, a captivating successful style that touched the hearts.
, the fifth step, Mother Cabrini did not back down for reminding public officials of their responsibility to contribute to the services she had started and to choose policies that would ease the problems of the immigrants.
As we observe her Feast Day, the relevance of Mother Cabrini’s example and her method endures and applies in contemporary societies that under the impact of new arrivals are becoming increasingly pluralistic and demand mutual comprehension, and a genuine sense of welcome and of integration. Native-born and immigrants can build a common future of peace and reciprocal enrichment if there are women and men who have a maternal heart like Mother Cabrini that is all-embracing in its compassion and evangelical love. ~ Archbishop Silvano M. Tomasi, CS, 100 Years of Cabrini Mission
Journeying Together: Communion, Participation and Mission The Guadalupe Provincial Assembly 2022
Missionary Sisters, Cabrini Lay Missionaries, and lay collaborators from as far away as Australia, Italy, Guatemala, and Nicaragua gathered in Newark, NJ for the Post-General Chapter Provincial Assembly. An Assembly is an important time in the life of the Institute and the Guadalupe Province when the mandates and recommendations forthcoming from the General Chapter, which was held in Rome this past summer, are presented.
During the opening session, General Superior Sr. Maria Eliane Azevedo da Silva, MSC addressed the Assembly via Zoom. She spoke about living the unity in our diversity and encouraged Sisters and laity to move from the “I” to the “we” to promote a more inclusive mentality, citing Pope Francis’ exhortation to walk together in the same direction. She assured all of her prayers and support.
During the Assembly, table discussions took place focusing on the General Chapter mandates, and recommendations were forthcoming from those assembled. Various types of outreaches emerged from the discussions and sisters and laity were invited to indicate their interest in these initiatives.
There were also presentations by the various types of ministries sponsored by the MSCs, i.e. healthcare, education, social services, and spiritual ministries.
In the later days of the Assembly, Missionary Sisters addressed topics as vocation promotion and initial and ongoing formation.
Due to COVID, Province-wide gathering was not held for two years and this Assembly provided a welcome opportunity to renew long time friendships and meet new collaborators.
Bishops Speak Against Transport of Migrants
~ by Rhina Guidos, Catholic News Service
Washington – Several U.S. Catholic bishops slammed the actions of Republican politicians who have recently begun to send out of their states groups of women, children, and men seeking refuge.
They said these politicians are falsely telling the migrants that work, food and other benefits await them if they get on planes to other locales, but instead the only thing they find on the other end of the trip is confusion.
“To use migrants and refugees as pawns offends God, destroys society and shows how low individuals can (stoop) for personal gains,” wrote San Antonio Archbishop Gustavo Garcia-Siller on September 18.
He was one of several bishops to speak out after the latest drop-off of migrants – two groups of mostly Venezuelans who were flown on September 14 to Martha’s Vineyard in Massachusetts by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.
Some of the migrants have been sent from border states such as Texas and Arizona to Washington and New York in planes and sometimes buses. Some were recently dropped of near Vice President Kamala Harris’ residence in Washington, D.C. without prior notice to local officials.
Volunteers in those cities, including faith-based nonprofits such as Catholic Charities, have scrambled to help the newcomers confused by the situation.
“The problem is not the refugees, it is leaders that cannot accept: We are one humanity,” Garcia-Siller said, adding that we would be praying for “conversion of heart” and for the protection of brothers and sisters in need.
Though taken by surprise, the community of Martha’s Vineyard pulled together to help with the sudden arrival of migrants on September 14. In a September 16 statement, Bishop Edgar M. da Cunha of Fall River, Massachusetts, said the community responded in the manner the Gospel tells Christians to care for the stranger, citing St. Matthew’s Gospel: “For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty, and you gave me drink, a stranger and you welcomed me.”
To read the complete account, please click here
Ukraine – a Hunting Ground for Traffickers
Human trafficking occurs in every country in the world and the war in Ukraine is not just a battleground – it is a hunting ground for human traffickers. The uprooting of many people and the creation of refugees make a war zone ideal for recruitment into slavery.
According to Michael O’Neill, former Chair of the International NGO Safety and Security Association, “The predators are well-organized, well-resourced, and relentless.” Defeating the traffickers, or at least slowing them down, depends on educating the refugees. Too often refugees have no idea of the dangers they face from traffickers while at the same time being exceptionally vulnerable to them.
Here’s what too often happens: A young woman fleeing Ukraine may be weighed down with multiple fears, including that she: Doesn’t have a place to stay; doesn’t speak the language; is afraid for her husband’s life; is separated from her family and what was once her support system; has lost all her material possessions. Additionally, she’s exhausted from a 22-hour trip. She is now the perfect target for a seemingly kindly stranger who offers her a hot meal and a place to stay. Unfortunately, that “kindly” stranger may whisk her away to another country where she may disappear forever into the sex trade.
Also, members of trafficking rings target relief organizations. They know that if they manage to be accepted as a volunteer, they’ll have inside information on who is vulnerable and how to get to them.
Sex trafficking is not a new phenomenon in Ukraine, a country long-known as a hub for transnational organized crime syndicates involved in all manner of black-market illicit activity.
“But it has exploded since Russia invaded” in February, according to Mariya Dmytriyeva, a Kyiv-based women’s rights advocate for the Democracy Development Center, an NGO that works on the development of civil society and state of law in Ukraine.
Dmytriyeva said the many criminal mafias in and around Ukraine flock to sex trafficking because of the lax attitude toward it among authorities. The pimps, hustlers and crime syndicates responsible for it are rarely arrested and almost never prosecuted. And there are far more lenient penalties for those who are than for drug trafficking and other serious crimes.
“We know that organized crime is using this because it is much easier to sell a girl than to sell a bunch of cocaine,” she said. “And there is this famous saying here that you can sell a kilo of cocaine only one time, but you can sell a 12-year-old girl until she dies.”
In the nearly three months since Russia’s invasion, the signs of sex trafficking have been everywhere, officials and experts report.
In Ukraine itself, hundreds of women and girls have reported experiencing sexual violence, including rape, to the country’s officials who work for human rights.
Russian soldiers – and even some opportunistic taxi drivers – are suspected of facilitating the trafficking of women and girls or forcing them to flee into Russia where they fall prey to organized crime syndicates who exploit them, according to other advocates on the ground.
In neighboring countries Poland, Moldova, Romania, Slovakia and Hungary, where most Ukrainians initially landed, reports of suspected trafficking have spiked. An unknown number of the more than two million who have made it to points beyond also have been victimized, according to recent reports by the United Nations, the OSCE and numerous advocacy and humanitarian groups.
To help address the issue, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) Ukraine, has scaled up the work of the National Migrant Advice and Counter-Trafficking Hotline 527, by extending opening hours, doubling the number of advisers and offering reliable and updated information on a wide range of topics. The hotline, which can be accessed from within Ukraine, has already provided over 12,000 consultations to over 2,400 callers received from 24 February to 16 March only, which is 60 percent more compared to the same period last year. More than half of the people calling are newly displaced persons. The hotline provides verified information on rights and obligations related to the current procedures of border crossing, services within Ukraine and neighboring countries, work of border-crossing points, safe travel and countering human trafficking.
The IOM-supported National Migrant Advice and Counter-Trafficking Hotline can be reached in Ukraine at 527 (free from mobile phones) or at 0 800 505 501 (free from landline phones) from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. Those staying abroad can reach hotline consultants at 527.hotline@gmail.com.
Exploiting the turmoil
La Strada International, a consortium of dozens of advocacy groups, research, conducted over the past two months, found that unaccompanied children, undocumented people and those who might not have access to the temporary protection offered in European Union countries face the greatest danger.
“And the dangers will grow as the war continues, with more people becoming displaced within Ukraine, making access to services and livelihoods increasingly precarious, while millions of refugees will need to settle for longer periods in other European countries and start accessing the labor market,” the La Strada report said. ~ submitted by Karol Brewer, Guadalupe Province Action and Advocacy Coalition
Raising Human Trafficking Awareness Among Students
Cabrini University’s ECG 200 – Voices for the Voiceless: Anti-Human Trafficking class, in collaboration with the Missionary Sisters Action and Advocacy Coalition, held an anti-human trafficking event on Monday, May 2, at Cabrini University. The event was held to raise awareness and to educate on human trafficking. The students had several “stations” set-up throughout campus where they presented on topics: What is Human Trafficking?, Covid and its Effect on Human Trafficking, Trafficking During Global Events, Child Slavery/Child Labor and Slavery Footprints.
Guilherme “G” Lopes, Director of Campus Ministry, began our event with a beautiful prayer and we ended with a prayer to end Human Trafficking written by Sr. Veronica Piccone, MSC. Both the men’s and women’s lacrosse teams participated in the walk with their coaches, as well as students (and some of their family members) and staff.
We feel the students help create a campus of abolitionists who are passionate about standing up against the injustices of modern day slavery and know they will continue their fight to help end it!
Anti-Human Trafficking Walk
Artist hopes New Sculpture Can Spotlight Sisters’ Work Fighting Human Trafficking
~ by Christopher White, Global Sisters Report
Pope Francis has said that human trafficking is a modern form of human slavery, and he has been critical of governments, business leaders, and those in civil society who turn a blind eye to it.
Now, Canadian artist Timothy Schmalz is hoping his new sculpture will help put a spotlight on an issue he believes too many individuals and governments would prefer to look away from. And on Sunday, February 6, the pope offered his blessing – both to the sculpture and to the religious sisters on the front lines leading the fight against human trafficking.
The design for the sculpture is inspired, in part, by the work of the 19th- century Canossian religious sister, now Saint Josephine Bakhita, who hailed from the Darfur region of Sudan and was kidnapped by traffickers at age 9. Upon becoming free, she entered religious life and committed herself to caring for the poor and destitute. She is the patron saint of human trafficking victims and survivors.
The bronze statue design – which will eventually have permanent homes in both Rome and the United States – depicts Bakhita opening up the gates of the underworld and allowing those enslaved by trafficking to be set free. More than 50 individuals represent a range of trafficking victims – including a child bride, young beggars, an individual trafficking for their organs, both men and women enslaved in prostitution.
Schmalz told Global Sisters Report he hopes the sculpture, titled, “Let the Oppressed Go Free,” will become a “weapon of awareness.”
“Thank you for your courage,” the pope said to the religious sisters present with a 10-foot bronze model of the statue in St. Peter’s Square during his remarks after the Sunday Angelus.
Feast Day of St. Josephine Bakhita – International Day of Prayer and Awareness against Human Trafficking
The Catholic Church celebrates the feast day of St. Josephine Bakhita on the 8th of February each year, her life was a journey from slavery to freedom and faith. The patron saint of Sudan, her life story inspires hope in the face of modern day indifference and exploitation.
As Pope Francis states: “She is charged with showing to all the path to conversion, which enables us to change the way we see our neighbors, to recognize in every other person a brother or sister in our human family and to acknowledge his or her intrinsic dignity in truth and freedom. This saint, who lived at the turn of the twentieth century, is even today an exemplary witness of hope for the many victims of slavery; she can support the efforts of all those committed to fighting against this ‘open wound on the body of contemporary society.’” Pope Francis on the Celebration of the World Day of Peace 2015
Saint Josephine Margaret Bakhita was born around 1869 in the Darfur region of Sudan. She was a member of the Daju people and her uncle was a tribal chief. Due to her family lineage, she grew up happy and relatively prosperous, saying that as a child, she did not know suffering.
Historians believe that sometime in February 1877, Josephine was kidnapped by Arab slave traders. Although she was just a child she was forced to walk barefoot over 600 miles to a slave market. She was bought and sold at least twice during the grueling journey.
For the next 12 years she would be bought and sold and given away over a dozen times. She spent so much time in captivity that she forgot her original name.
As a slave, her treatment was cruel with several owners. She was sold to the Italian Vice Consul, Callisto Legani. He was kind to her. When it was time for him to return to Italy, she begged to be taken with him and he agreed.
After a long journey back to Italy, Legani gave her away to another family as a gift and she served them as a nanny. This new family had dealings in Sudan and when her mistress decided to travel to Sudan without Josephine, she place her in the custody of the Canossian Sisters in Venice. While with the Sisters she came to know about God.
When the mistress returned from Sudan, Josephine refused to leave the Sisters. This caused the Superior of the Institute for baptismal candidates among the sisters to complain to Italian authorities on Josephine’s behalf.
The case went to court, and the court found that slavery had been outlawed in Sudan before Josephine was born, so she could not be lawfully made a slave. She was declared free.
For the first time in her life, Josephine was free and could choose her own path. She chose to remain with the Canossian Sisters.
She was baptized in 1890 and three years later became a novice with the Canossian Daughters of Charity and took her final vows in 1896. For the next 42 years, she worked as a cook and doorkeeper at the convent. She was known for her gentle voice and smile.
She died on February 8, 1947. She was canonized by Saint Pope John Paul II on October 1, 2000. She is the patron saint of Sudan.
To read the full account, please click here
The International Day of Prayer and Awareness Against Human Trafficking
This Day of Prayer is held on February 8th each year. In addition to prayer, the day is a call to action:
“Our awareness must expand and extend to the very depths of this evil and its farthest reaches…from awareness to prayer…from prayer to solidarity…and from solidarity to concerted action, until slavery and trafficking are no more,” says Cardinal Peter Turkson.
In this sense another goal of the day is to encourage people to act and to take concrete steps to help eradicate slavery and trafficking. Indeed, an essential part of freedom is our ongoing effort to ensure it is woven into the fabric of our society.
To access resources for the International Day of Prayer, please click here
To access the Corporate Stance of the Missionary Sisters, please click here
Awareness and Advocacy re: Human Trafficking
Cabrini High School, New Orleans, took the week of January 10-14 to highlight National Human Trafficking Awareness Month. In solidarity with Mother Cabrini’s Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart, each day began with prayers for an end to this sinful tragedy. Facts about human trafficking and how we can advocate and fight against it were highlighted daily. The week culminated in a dress-up day, where students raised funds for the anti-trafficking efforts of the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart and the Cabrini Mission Foundation.
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