World Day of Migrants and Refugees:
What’s that all about? When did that start?
Our Catholic Church inaugurated this annual day of concern and prayer in 1914.
This year, the 110th Day of Migrants and Refugees, Pope Francis chose the theme:
God Walks with His People
The key word is to walk with (to accompany). To walk with is the opposite of to exploit, and exploitation is the treatment given to many refugees, immigrants, and other vulnerable people.
- The rawest form of exploitation is enslavement through human trafficking. Human trafficking means holding people against their will for sex, for labor or a combination of the two.
- The majority of those trafficked are women and children. An estimated 14,000 to 17,000 people are trafficked into the U.S each year, but vulnerable citizens of our country, often young people, are also trafficked.
- It is estimated that 199,999 incidents of trafficking occur in the United States each year, making ours one of the worst countries globally for human trafficking.
You are invited to a presentation
September 29, 2024 The World Day of Migrants and Refugees
Come learn about human trafficking and to learn how to walk with, that is, how to care for women, children, and men who are or have been trafficked.
Dr. Nadine Thomas, Executive Director of Underground N.E., will tell us about how human trafficking works, its brutal destruction of young lives, and what we, right here in our Diocese, can do about it.
Let’s start a dialogue that may leave us changed and freed to walk with those who are enslaved by human trafficking
This event is sponsored by St. Mary Church and the Office for Hispanic Ministry