St. Josephine Bakhita

Josephine Bakhita was born in 1869 in the Darfur region of what is now Sudan. She grew up in a stable, loving family belonging to the Daju people, and her early childhood appears to have been relatively peaceful. Around the age of seven or eight, however, she was kidnapped by Arab slave traders. The experience was so traumatic that she later said she could not remember her birth name, and her kidnappers gave her the name "Bakhita," meaning "fortunate one" — a name she would carry for the rest of her life. The name was, in retrospect, ironic: she was sold and resold several times in the brutal Sudanese slave trade over the following years, enduring cruel treatment at the hands of multiple owners.

After passing through several hands, Bakhita was purchased in 1882 by Callisto Legnani, the Italian consul in Khartoum. Legnani treated her with unusual kindness for the time and place, and when his post ended, he brought her back to Italy. There she was placed in the care of the Canossian Daughters of Charity in Venice, first as a household servant and eventually under the sisters' religious instruction. It was during this period, around 1890, that she was baptized, taking the name Josephine at her confirmation in 1896. She came to understand the faith as a profound liberation: she later described the moment of her baptism as the moment she finally received the freedom she had long desired, comparing it to being "bathed in light."

When Legnani's family sought to reclaim her, Bakhita's case came before an Italian court, which ruled in 1896 that because slavery was not legally recognized in Italy, she had technically been free from the moment she set foot on Italian soil. Her freedom was confirmed, and rather than leave, she chose to enter religious life. In 1896 she became a Canossian Daughter of Charity, taking simple vows in 1900 and perpetual vows in 1907. She served for many years as a cook, doorkeeper, and catechist in a Canossian school in Venice, and later in Schio in northern Italy, where she was beloved for her gentle humor and the radiant joy with which she welcomed visitors. She was widely known for the small wooden crucifix she held in her hand, offering it to anyone who came near and saying, with a smile, "Be good! Love the Lord! Pray!"

Bakhita's reputation for holiness only grew after her death. She died in Schio on February 8, 1947, surrounded by the sisters she had lived with for decades. She was beatified in 1992 and canonized by Pope John Paul II on October 1, 2000, becoming the first Sudanese saint. Her autobiography, which she dictated late in life with some assistance, remains an important historical witness to the realities of the nineteenth-century African slave trade as well as a testimony of Christian forgiveness. Her feast day, February 8, is observed in the Roman Calendar as an optional memorial.

Her legacy has only expanded since her canonization. Saint Josephine Bakhita is venerated as the patron saint of human trafficking victims, modern slavery survivors, and the country of Sudan, and her September 8 commemoration of her baptism is observed in some dioceses as an annual day of prayer for trafficking victims. In 2015, Pope Francis declared February 8 the International Day of Prayer and Awareness Against Human Trafficking. Schools, shelters, and anti-trafficking organizations around the world bear her name, and her life continues to be invoked as a witness against the trade in human persons and for the dignity of those who have survived it.