Today is National Human Trafficking Awareness Day. It is set aside to educate people around the world about forms of trafficking, how to identify it and how help those in need. According to the World Vision website:
- There are 25 million in forced labor
- 40.3 million adults and children are in forced labor and sexual slavery
- One in four modern slaves is a child.
- 14 countries are without adequate laws to prevent trafficking.
These are staggering figures. Most people in our area of the world don’t even know that it’s happening around us, often within our own communities. So today, let us take time to research what is happening in the world around us and to use our voice, our time and our means to combat human trafficking. Please pray with us…
Prayer to End Human Trafficking
O Lord, you said you came: “to set the captives free.”
In our world young men and women who are trafficked are modern day slaves.
Help these young people not to lose hope.
Give the grace for elected officials to grow in awareness of and to take active steps to eradicate this horror.
Teach them not to prosecute the victims of trafficking but to bring to justice those who perpetrate this crime.
Lord, give the grace of conversion to those who mistreat unfortunates for their own personal gain.
May demand decrease as people realize that prostitution is a crime against human dignity, forced upon these people, who are more victim than anything else.
May the awareness of this horrendous crime spread throughout the world and may many join the efforts to stop trafficking and help the victims begin anew, filled with hope.
We ask this in the name of Jesus. Amen.
~ Sr. Veronica Piccone, MSC