St. Josephine Bakhita

Kidnapped and Sold into Slavery

St. Josephine Bakhita was born around 1869 in the village of Olgossa in the Darfur region of Sudan. Kidnapped by slave traders at about the age of seven, she was so traumatized that she forgot her own name; her captors mockingly called her Bakhita, meaning 'fortunate' or 'lucky.' Over the following years she was sold and resold in the markets of El Obeid and Khartoum, enduring beatings, humiliation, and, in one household, the agonizing practice of ornamental scarring that left her body permanently marked.

Italy, the Canossians, and Freedom

Her circumstances changed when she was purchased by an Italian consular official who treated her kindly and brought her to Italy. There she served as nanny to the daughter of the Michieli family and, when the child was placed with the Canossian Sisters in Venice, Bakhita entered the convent with her. Among the sisters she came to know the God she said she had sensed in her heart since childhood without knowing his name. When the Michielis returned to claim her, she refused to leave, and in 1889 an Italian court ruled that because slavery was illegal, she had never lawfully been a slave and was free.

Fifty Years of Service at Schio

Bakhita was baptized in 1890, taking the name Josephine Margaret, and in 1896 made her vows as a Canossian Daughter of Charity. For the next fifty years she lived in the community at Schio, in northern Italy, serving humbly as cook, sacristan, and doorkeeper. The townspeople loved her and called her Madre Moretta, the Black Mother; her gentleness, her ready smile, and her astonishing freedom from bitterness toward those who had enslaved her became legendary. Asked what she would do if she met her captors, she said she would kneel and kiss their hands, for without them she would not have come to know Christ.

Canonization and Day of Prayer Against Trafficking

She died at Schio on February 8, 1947. Beatified in 1992 and canonized on October 1, 2000, by Pope John Paul II, she is the first Sudanese saint and is venerated as patron of Sudan and of survivors of human trafficking; her feast day, February 8, is now observed worldwide as the International Day of Prayer and Awareness against Human Trafficking. Her remains rest in the Church of the Holy Family beside the Canossian convent in Schio, a growing place of pilgrimage.

Significance

Stolen from her family as a small child and given a name that mocked her, Bakhita came to know the God she had sensed in her heart long before she knew his name. Her freedom from bitterness toward those who enslaved her, and her humble years of service as a Canossian sister, reveal how grace can heal even the deepest wounds. Survivors of trafficking and all who work to end it find in her both a patron and a sign of hope.