
CV NEWS FEED // The Archdiocese of San Francisco, California is offering a free webinar class to inform attendees about cyber-exploitation and how this criminal online activity can lead to human trafficking.
The archdiocese’s Respect Life Ministry of the Office of Human Life & Dignity is sponsoring the webinar, set for February 7. “The webinar will feature Susan Patterson who has written two books on human trafficking: ‘How You Can Fight Human Trafficking’ and ‘The Power of the Church to End Human Trafficking,’” an email press release stated.
The Archdiocese’ webinar on cyber-exploitation is free to attend. Those interested can register here.
CatholicVote previously reported that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and digital experts warned parents not to post their children’s photos online, as this makes them vulnerable to predators who can use Artificial Intelligence (AI) to generate child sexual abuse materials (CSAM).
The email press release added that on February 8 the Respect Life Ministry will have “a Rosary to Eradicate Human Trafficking on the feast day of St. Josephine Bakhita.” February 8 is also the International Day of Prayer and Awareness against Human Trafficking.
St. Josephine Bakhita was born in 1869 in Darfur, Sudan and is the patron saint of human trafficking survivors.
According to the Bakhita Foundation, “While still a young girl around 7 years old, she was kidnapped and sold into slavery. Her captors asked for her name but in her fear, and as a result of the trauma, she was unable to remember. Mocking her, they named her ‘Bakhita,’ which means ‘fortunate.’”
“During her time of captivity she was tortured by her various owners. She suffered brandings and beatings on many occasions,” the Bakhita Foundation states:
Eventually, after exchanging hands five or six times, St. Bakhita found herself serving as a caretaker for a young girl at a school in Venice run by Canossian Sisters. Bakhita was very intrigued by the Catholic faith. She learned many things from the sisters and was eventually baptized by the name “Josephine Margaret”.
Against the will of her owner, who wanted to take her back to Africa, she went before the Italian courts seeking her freedom. The courts declared that Bakhita was a free woman because slavery had been outlawed in both Italy and the Sudan and they allowed her to stay in Italy.
Bakhita then joined the Canossian Sisters, where she lived out her religious vocation “serving God and her community and teaching others to love Him with great faithfulness,” the Bakhita Foundation stated. Bakhita died in 1947, and Pope John Paul II canonized her a saint in 2000.
