Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus
Bringing Christ's love to the world
We are very proud and grateful for the students of Cabrini University’s ECG 200, Voices for the Voiceless class. They helped organize a Human Trafficking Awareness W
alk at Cabrini University on November 10 (Cabrini Day) and had “stations” where they shared info on Human Trafficking. The students in this class have become abolitionists and we know they are going to continue to be voices for the voiceless!
~ The Barbara and John Jordan Center for Children of Trauma and Domestic Violence Education, Cabrini Action and Advocacy Coalition, and ECG 200 Voice for Voiceless-Anti-Human Trafficking Class
Some topics discussed:
What is Human Trafficking?
Human trafficking is a form of modern-day slavery, in which people are controlled and exploited for profit. Perpetrators use force, fraud, and/or coercion to manipulate and establish control over individuals.
Types of Trafficking:
Various forms of trafficking exist around the world, including forced labor, sex trafficking, child labor, forced marriage, and child soldiers.
Statistics:
In 2019, 11,500 situations of human trafficking were reported to the U.S. National Human Trafficking Hotline. These situations involved 22,326 individual survivors; nearly 4,384 traffickers and 1,912 suspicious businesses. Human trafficking is very much under reported. Shocking as these numbers are, they are likely only a fraction of the actual problem.
Impact:
Trafficked persons often have limited access to basic necessities such as safety, food, sleep, hygiene, and medical care.
Get Involved:
Learn everything you can about human trafficking and share that info with your friends, neighbors, family members; donate to organization’s who help trafficked victims & volunteer for them:
Please place the National Human Trafficking Hotline # in your cell phone 1-888-3737-888 and report suspected cases.
~ Chris Herlinger, Global Sisters Report
In addition to eliminating jobs, halting and slowing travel, and disrupting food pipelines, the coronavirus pandemic has exacerbated the problem of human trafficking said experts gathered at an October 14 symposium entitled: “Combating Human Trafficking: Action in a Time of Crisis” sponsored by the U.S. Embassy to the Holy See and held at the International Union of Superiors General in Rome.
Declaring human trafficking “a stain on all of humanity,” said Calista Gingrich, the U.S. Ambassador to the Holy See. She further said that human trafficking “is impervious to our current health crisis. It invades borders, destroys communities, and robs millions of their human dignity.”
In many communities, Gingrich said, “exploitation, abuse and modern slavery are on the rise. Countless victims, especially women and children, face growing threats. As the economic fallout of this pandemic continues, additional men, women and children are likely to become victims of forced labor and sex trafficking.”
She said that amidst the troubling signs, alliances focused on ending the exploitation of human can make a difference. She hailed the work of Catholic sisters, church-based humanitarian [groups] and law enforcement and said the shared concern about human trafficking is a “cornerstone” of the relationship between the U.S. embassy and the Holy See.”
In her remarks, Loreto Sister Patricia Murray, IUSG executive secretary noted that the United Nations has said the pandemic will likely cause an estimated 34.3 million people “to fall below the extreme poverty line” this year alone with over half that increase to happen in African countries. That has made people desperate for ways to support themselves and their families and has opened the opportunity for exploitation by traffickers.
Murray quoted Pope Francis’ declaration earlier this year that the financial gain from trafficking amounts to “blood money” and described trafficking as an “open wound on the body of contemporary society.”
To read the entire article click here
To access a PDF with Missionary Sisters’ Corporate Stance on Human Trafficking click here
Human Trafficking Awareness – Award-Winning Documentary
A Free Movie Event
ponsored by:
The Barbara and John Jordan Center for Children of Trauma and Domestic Violence Education, Cabrini Action and Advocacy Coalition, and ECG 200 Voice for Voiceless- Anti-Human Trafficking Class
Wednesday, March 25, 2020 – 6:00 pm
Cabrini University Widener Lecture Hall
Please register for the event at https://tinyurl.com/tq853x7
“‘California’s Forgotten Children’ is a feature documentary about child sex trafficking. The film recounts true stories of girls and boys who were commercially sexually exploited in California and are now survivors and courageous leaders fighting for the rights of victims worldwide. (Website)
Melody C. Miller is a filmmaker who works to make a positive impact in the world by
making narrative films and documentaries. An advocate for women and children’s rights, Melody has dedicated from the start of her career making films that amplify the voices and stories of causes she cares about. She has gone above and beyond to not only create empowering films but creating a movement of change. (Website)
This movie is relevant to a variety of academic disciplines. Students from all majors will benefit by attending this event. Student attendance will be recorded at this event.
Please Come and Bring a Friend! Open to the Public
We will be accepting donations of gift cards (Target, Walmart), underwear, feminine hygiene products, and travel-sized bottles of shampoo and/or soaps at this event.
Questions about the event:
The Barbara and John Jordan Center for Children of Trauma and Domestic Violence Education
Phone: 610-902-8466
Email: jordancenter@cabrini.edu
Cabrini Advocacy and Action Coalition
Phone: 610-902-1038 cabriniformation@mothercabrini.org
Cabrini University’s ECG Anti-Human Trafficking class, the Barbara and John Jordan Center and the Cabrini Action & Advocacy Coalition (Cabrini Closet) recently organized an evening at Cabrini University with guest speaker, Tammy McDonnell, an activist, advocate and human trafficking survivor. The following are excerpts of the account of the presentation which appeared in Catholic 
Philly.com.
Human trafficking survivor Tammy McDonnell shared her experiences on November 6 at Cabrini University and, through a panel discussion that followed, raised awareness among students and residents about the crime of trafficking — a form of modern-day slavery — its prevalence in Philadelphia-area communities and how to combat it.
Human trafficking occurs when force, fraud, or coercion is used to control another person for the purpose of engagement in commercial sex acts or soliciting labor or services against that person’s will.
“Slavery is death,” said McDonnell, who is also an activist for Covenant House in Philadelphia. Human trafficking treats people as disposable, she said.
“Trafficking happens in your own backyard,” she said, adding that it is so prevalent, “you can be sitting next to a survivor, and not even know it.”
Her human trafficking story began when she sold her car for $800 to a man that she now realizes was a “recruiter,” an intermediary who referred her to someone who could give her a job that she needed, which “was the start of everything.”
Looking back, she now realizes her trafficker was a predator who took advantage of her vulnerabilities. She felt trapped and was too afraid to break away because she needed to protect her family from the trafficker, who made threats against her mother and her children.
Then one day, she said, “this cosmic mental switch went off, and I said, ‘I’m done.’” She fled Philadelphia for New Jersey, where she was homeless and subsisted by committing petty theft crimes, such as breaking into parked cars and stealing items which she sold to purchase food and drugs.
The crisis center referred McDonnell to a women’s recovery program, where she lived with Catholic nuns for 18 months. During her recovery, one of the sisters recommended McDonnell for a position as survivor advocate for Covenant House in Philadelphia. Now, her role has been expanded also to include outreach worker.
“I can raise awareness because it’s so necessary,” McDonnell said. She advocates for laws to prevent human trafficking in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. “I knew nothing about the law, except how to break it.” But now she attends community college, pursuing paralegal studies, and hopes eventually to attend law school. “My life is helping other people,” she says.
For the past five years, the Cabrini University Grounds staff members have collaborated with the staff members of the Cabrini Cottage in planting and tending to a vegetable garden on The Cottage grounds. The veggies that are planted are harvested throughout the summer and given to area homes and programs for rescued victims of human trafficking and for food-insecure senior citizens. This year, tomatoes and peppers are the crops of choice.
Here Sr. Grace Waters, MSC (r.) puts a shovel in the ground with the assistance of Eduardo (l.) and Felix (r.)
University Grounds Crew members.
Being indifferent to or excluding migrants is a sign of a deteriorating morality that will soon spread and risk marginalizing everyone who fails to fit in, Pope Francis said.
In fact, the Christian response of welcoming, protecting, promoting and integrating does not apply only to migrants and refugees, but to all people living on the “existential peripheries,” he said.
Today’s challenge is not just about migrants, “but about all of us and about the present and future of the human family,” the Pope said. Through migrants, refugees and all vulnerable people, “the Lord is calling us to conversion, to be set free from exclusivity, indifference and the throw-away culture,” and embrace more fully an authentic Christian life, building a world “that is more and more in accord with God’s plan.”
In his message, the Pope said, “The most economically advanced societies are witnessing a growing trend toward extreme individualism which, combined with a utilitarian mentality and reinforced by the media is producing a ‘globalization of indifference.’”
As a consequence, migrants, refugees, displaced persons and victims of trafficking experience exclusion and hardship and are sometimes “considered the source of all society’s ills,” he said.
“That attitude is an alarm bell warning of the moral decline we will face if we continue to give ground to the throw away culture. In fact, if it continues, anyone who does not fall within the accepted norms of physical, mental and social well-being is at risk of marginalization and exclusion,” the Pope warned.
The presence of migrants, refugees and vulnerable people in general, he said, is an invitation to recover some of those essential dimensions of our Christian experience and our humanity that risk being overlooked in a prosperous society.”
At a news conference to present the pope’s message, Jesuit Fr. Michael Czerny, undersecretary of the Migrants and Refugee Section of the Vatican Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development, said, “migration is not an unexpected, unprecedented crisis or emergency,” but, is a fact of human life.
Today’s society and “popular media” instead tend to ignore people on the move, “caricature them, keep them invisible or make them disappear.”
“Today’s world is increasingly becoming more elitist and cruel toward the excluded. Developing countries continue to be drained of their best natural and human resources for the benefit of a few privileged markets,” the Pope wrote. “Those who pay the price are always the little ones, the poor, the most vulnerable, who are prevented from sitting at the table and are left with the ‘crumbs’ of the banquet,” he said.
To read the full article: https://www.ncronline.org/news/vatican/francis-chronicles/exclusion-migrants-red-flag-society-moral-decline-pope-says
Human trafficking is a “crime against humanity,” because it denies the human dignity of the victim, seeing him or her only as a piece of merchandise to be used to enrich or give pleasure to another, Pope Francis said.
Human trafficking, “in its multiple forms, is a wound in the humanity of those who endure it and those who commit it,” the Pope said April 11, addressing the closing session of a Vatican conference.
The Migrants and Refugees Section of the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development organized the conference April 8-11. The office brought together more than 200 bishops, priests, men and women religious, project coordinators, pastoral workers, representatives of Catholic organizations and foundations and trafficking experts from around the world to brainstorm and coordinate efforts to stop trafficking.
“Trafficking,” the Pope said, is “an unjustifiable violation of the victims’ freedom and dignity, which are integral dimensions of the human person willed and created by God. This is why it must be considered, without a doubt, a crime against humanity.”
Francis praised women religious, in particular, but also all Catholics working to stop human trafficking and assist the victims.
Archbishop Paul Gallagher, the Vatican’s foreign minister, told participants the crime of human trafficking “does not have borders. It violates human rights without discrimination,” ensnaring children, women and men around the globe. “It is inextricably linked to statelessness, conflict, misery, corruption, a lack of education as well as migration and smuggling.”
To read the complete article: https://www.ncronline.org/news/justice/francis-chronicles/human-trafficking-crime-against-humanity-pope-says
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. [Read more…]
~by Jeanne Christensen, RSM, Global Sisters Report
In 2004, for the first time, I met prostituted women who had survived and were moving successfully into recovery. I was awed by their stories, but more so by their strength, courage and resilience. How could anyone survive what they had experienced and still have hope? One told me, “God reached into hell and pulled me out.” I wanted to say, “Yes, but give yourself credit.” She now operates a nonprofit, helping other victims and survivors.
When younger, these women were among those at great risk — runaway youth. The National Conference of State Legislature cites studies showing that “youth age 12 to 17 are more at risk of homelessness than adults”; “one in seven young people between the ages of 10 and 18 will run away”; and “75 percent of runaways are female.” If runaways or homeless youth are on the streets without a safe place to go, their abduction is likely within 48 hours, according to public safety officials. They often run from or are forced out of terrible home situations. Many believe nothing could be worse. Unfortunately, they are usually wrong. [Read more…]