Minutes after voting on and unanimously adopting a "Province Stand" against human trafficking Aug. 5, more than 300 Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet of the Los Angeles Province walked around St. Mary's Academy and its Inglewood neighborhood in silent and prayerful public witness.

Some carried banners and placards protesting trafficking. Others wore mime masks, symbolizing how hidden and lost victims often feel.

Stopping on the concrete front steps of St. John Chrysostom Church at 4:45 p.m., Sister Mary McKay, provincial, read the statement, proclaiming that human trafficking was the most grievous violation of fundamental human rights taking place in the 21st century.

"Enslaving persons, especially women and children through the use of force, deception, fraud, sale or coercion for the purpose of sexual exploitation, forced labor such as garment factories, agricultural work or domestic servitude is the antithesis of who we are as Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet and CSJ Associates," declared Sister McKay. "We stand together in recognizing, affirming and defending the inherent dignity of all persons against every type of discrimination and against every form of violence and oppression which denies full human development."

Sister McKay then formally committed the Western Province to prayer, education and "actions on behalf of the victims of this atrocious evil of colossal magnitude."

During the afternoon session, which was part of the province's three-day general assembly, a woman named Maria shared her story as a survivor of trafficking. Born in Mexico, she came to the United States legally at 16 with her father to join their family.

Without going into specific details, the middle-aged Latina said she was sold to a cruel man for $200, supposedly to clean house for an elderly couple. But the couple were rarely around, and the man beat, raped and terrorized her for the next five years. Then he found her a job, taking all of her money for himself.

"I was living in terror day by day, not knowing if the next day I was going to be alive," she recalled.

Maria said a neighbor finally killed the man who had bought her, but her troubles only got worse. She was convicted of her enslaver's murder, serving 23 ½ years in a state prison. Upon her release in Dec. 2003, she was picked up and detained by the INS for another five months. And today she's still fighting deportation.

"I was young with dreams and goals as a young girl --- not knowing that someone in this country was going to corrupt all my dreams and goals, and try to destroy my whole life," she said. "At that time, I had no idea that I was a victim of slavery held against my will."

In closing, Maria reported that her life was better now, with new goals and dreams, but added: "Just because you can't see my wounds, that doesn't mean I don't hurt. As victims, we are still being injured. We are crying for help and understanding."

Sister Catherine Marie Kreta, who runs the Western Province's Justice Office, told The Tidings that her fellow women religious, after educating themselves for two years on human trafficking, decided to take a public corporate stand on the issue to protect and support women like Maria.

"This is a biggie for us," she said. "We have taken only two other corporate stands: one on nuclear free zones and the other on the death penalty. But so many people don't have any sense of what trafficking is or how its victims may be all around us.

"So we could be much more proactive. And I think that's what we want to train our sisters to be."