International Day of Prayer and Awareness Against Human Trafficking, February 8

Walking for Dignity

International Day of Prayer and Awareness Against Human Trafficking, February 8, 2023

Dignity immediately refers to something precious. It is an inherent quality of the human person; it concerns the very essence of being a person. When there is no more dignity, there is no more humanity. Therefore, dignity is inviolable. Whoever violates the dignity of another kills him even if he remains alive because a life without dignity is a non-life. The dignity of the person is sacred and in the face of the sacred one must feel respect.

Dignity can be lost, dignity can be taken away, dignity can be restored. Dignity is lost when we turn away from the human dimension in us, when we sink into degradation, and this happens because of lack of respect for ourselves or lack of respect for others.

One takes away dignity when one denies the other something that is inherent in dignity itself: first and foremost, freedom, self-determination, respect for rights. In the most extreme forms, dignity is taken away when one no longer considers the other as a person but as an object to be disposed of. Slavery is a violation of dignity, and slavery can be imposed in many ways. It is not necessary to be chained to the shackles. There are the chains of discrimination, contempt, exclusion. To deny hope and opportunity is to take away dignity, because the human person is made to fulfill himself, to hope.

Dignity is restored when chains are broken, when preclusions are removed, when welcome is given and opportunities are offered, especially when in front of the other person one stops in reverent respect. Dignity is restored when we walk around feeling in need, accepting the gift that the other gives me, no matter what his or her condition is.

Feb. 8 is the Day of Prayer Against Human Trafficking, established in memory of St. Josephine Bakhita, a symbol of slaves who can regain their freedom.

"Walk for dignity" is this year's theme. A call to not stand still, to set out by activating our resources to fight against trafficking, to restore dignity to those who are trafficked. There are an estimated 25 million trafficked people in the world. Of them, 5 million would be victims of sexual exploitation, 20 million victims of forced labor. Many of the victims of trafficking are migrants, people who are seeking a more dignified life and in this quest are often robbed of even the little dignity that remains in them. It happens for example in the dangerous crossing of the Sahara Desert, victims for whom the pope prayed as he flew over that desert. But it happens in many other routes to which migrants are forced because those who could are unwilling to give them the dignity of hope.

As Scalabrinian missionaries walking alongside migrants, we are invited to make our contribution in this struggle. Already we do this by giving comfort and hope to those who are turned away at the border, to

those who cross the border but do not know where to go, to those who can rediscover a glimmer of a future through a possibility of work. Already we do this in the initiatives of meeting, of dialogue, of

denunciation, of proclamation. We already do it by sharing bread and the word with migrants who believe and who keep their faith as a treasure, even if in clay pots. But on this occasion we want to join our voice

with that of the Church and all those who are committed against trafficking in persons to condemn those who take advantage of migrants in need, enslave them, violate their dignity. And we also condemn those migration policies that lack dignity because they do not allow migrants to seek greater dignity.

As we participate in the prayer to which the Church calls us on Feb. 8, let us include everyone, victims and perpetrators, because both need to regain dignity, convinced that the deepest dignity is that which Christ restored to humanity, a dignity that no one can take away and that no one can ever lose.