On a soggy Feb. 6 Saturday morning, it started with an impromptu prayer in the vestibule of St. Basil Church on Wilshire Boulevard:

"We thank you, God, for enabling us to walk with the poor, and we ask you today to help us walk contemplatively and mindfully of this injustice in our city," said Religious Sister of Charity Kathleen Bryant. "Protect every one here in the walk. Keep us safe. Keep us warm. And please let your people see and hear and be much more mindful of human trafficking in our city. Amen."

"Amen!" responded some 75 women religious from 14 congregations and their supporters from Mount Saint Mary's College and Flintridge Sacred Heart Academy, Pax Christi Los Angeles, the Los Angeles Archdiocese's Office of Justice and Peace, the Immaculate Heart Community and other agencies.

"Ok, let's march, Sisters, associates," Sister Bryant said. "Let's go for it."

And off they went up Wilshire, somehow managing to hold up placards saying "Stop Trafficking" in one hand and umbrellas in the other. In a little over an hour, the human mobile protest walked to Western Avenue, along Beverly Boulevard and then south on Normandie Avenue back to St. Basil's - 27 blocks recognizing the 27 million people still enslaved today.

Some of the marchers handed out facts sheets and brochures on human trafficking in Korean, Spanish and English to passersby. Others waved their signs and umbrellas at motorists who honked in support. On Western Avenue, a KTLA van pulled alongside to film them for the Channel 5 news.

"I think our biggest focus is trying to create awareness throughout California because so many people are not aware of the problem in our city, state and country," Sister Catherine Marie Kreta told The Tidings. "President Obama, in a recent presidential proclamation, urged Americans to educate ourselves about the forms and scope of human trafficking."

Sister Kreta, justice coordinator for the Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet and chair of CAST (Coalition to Abolish Slavery and Trafficking, one of the cosponsors of the walk under the Southern California Partnership for Global Justice), said according to the U.S State Department at least 18,000 to 20,000 of the 600,000 to 800,000 victims trafficked annually across international borders are destined for the United States.

Human trafficking today, Sister Kreta pointed out, is much broader than the commonly held belief that it only involves females forced into prostitution. In fact, it takes in domestic service, factory and agricultural work, begging, hotel housekeeping, child pornography, servile marriage and many other industries and services. She noted that California, New York and Florida are the states most affected by trafficking, with some 50,000 victims transported through California every year alone.

"It's the most horrific crime of this century," she stressed. "Next to drugs, it's the fastest growing illegal industry in the world. And it looks like in a few years it'll overtake drugs."

Sister Bryant, who helped organize the L.A. march, agreed that human trafficking was well "under the radar" for most Angelenos and Californians. She said the Sisters and their supporters were not only protesting international trafficking but also the forced use of runaways and teenagers in Southern California's lucrative pornography industry.

"This is our public witness to say, 'This is going on in our neighborhoods and our cities,'" she said.

In his Moral Issues column (see pp. 12-13, "Catholics slaveholding and slavery in the U.S."), Vincentian Father Richard Benson writes that human trafficking is perhaps the greatest example that slavery still exists in every nation in the world, including the United States. On Feb. 27, Mount St. Mary's College will host Justice Symposium 2010: "Human Trafficking: the PRICE we pay ..." at its Doheny campus, 10 Chester Place, Los Angeles. For more information, call (323) 887-8821, ext. 220.