Rev. Carl Janicki hosted an interfaith service for human trafficking in Grace Hall. Featured in the service was the chaplain of Eastern University, Rev. Joseph Modica.
“While victims of trafficking might seem like they’re lost in oceans, it’s efforts like this that will continue to lead and guide for them,” Janicki said.
According to the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, human trafficking is the “act of recruiting, transporting, transferring, harboring or receiving a person through use of force, coercion or other means, for the purpose of exploiting them.”
On Thursday, Feb. 5, Thomas Southard, interim director of the Wolfington Center, and Janicki, director of campus ministry, helped to raise the awareness of human trafficking in America.
Also, prayer leaders Peggy Jean Craig from Catholic Relief Services and Rabbi Rachel Brown from St. John’s Evangelical Lutheran Church in Phoenixville, Pa. came to support the service.
It is assumed that individuals trafficked in America are primarily from other countries who are promised jobs in the U.S., then tricked into trafficking. In some cases the thought is true but according to the United States Department of Justice about 83 percent of trafficking incidents were recorded and confirmed.
The service was hosted to pray for the victims going through the tragedy of being sold as modern-day slaves for money and passed around to buyers like a vegetable.
“The point is to remember that above and beyond all else God wants us to treat each other the way that we would treat ourselves,” Brown said. “God wants us to remember that each of us is created in God’s image.”
If you or someone that you know is a witness to human trafficking and you would like to report the incident, call the national human trafficking hotline at 1-888-373-7888.
