St. Josephine Bakhita

[Simone57]

Today, February is the feast of a saint I have never heard of until today.  She was a religious sister who was born in Sultanate of Darfur.   She passed away in Schio, Italy.  She had a remarkable life.  She was kidnapped and taken from her family to be a slave.  Named Bakhita, which means lucky in Arabic she was a victim of human trafficking.  She was abducted at an early age.   At the age of 12 she was baptized after being taken to live with a family in Italy.  She later became a nun joined a convent in Venice.  She is now known as the patron saint of victims of human trafficking. 

[CyrilSebastian]

Josephine's respected and reasonably prosperous father was the brother of the village chief.

[CyrilSebastian]

On November 29, 1889, an Italian court ruled that because the British had outlawed slavery in Sudan before   
Josephine's birth and because Italian law had never recognized slavery as legal, Josephine had never legally been a slave.