Saint who was former slave suggested as patron of trafficking victims

25-02-2010

PORTLAND, Ore. (CNS) -- There's a move under way to seek Vatican approval for a patron saint of human trafficking and slavery victims. St. Josephine Bakhita, a Sudanese slave-turned-nun, is the ideal saint for people whose labor and bodies are being exploited, said Brian Willis, a Portland Catholic who has worked for years to help women who have been forced into the sex trade.

Trafficking does not require the crossing of international borders, because "you can be born and raised and live in the same house and be a trafficking victim," said Willis, a member of St. Mary Cathedral in Portland.

"It is about exploitation." Global Health Promise, an organization Willis founded in 2007, protects women and their children from the impact of trafficking, prostitution and sexual exploitation.

Global Health Promise is working on establishing shelters for children in Nepal, plus a drop-in center at St. Vincent de Paul Parish in downtown Portland. Willis also works with End Child Prostitution and Trafficking, a group dedicated to combating sexual exploitation and trafficking of youth, in the U.S. Portland Archbishop John G. Vlazny and Willis have written letters to Archbishop Pietro Sambi, papal nuncio to the United States, suggesting that the cause of trafficking victims would benefit from the naming of a patron saint. The letters will then be sent on to the Vatican.

http://www.catholicnews.com/data/briefs/cns/20100224.htm