On 18 October, Europe marks EU Anti-Trafficking Day, a day set aside by the European Commission in 2007 to remember those who have been trafficked and to press the work of ending it. This year it falls on a Sunday.
RENATE’s House of Prayer Task Group has prepared Seven Days of Prayer, a booklet for the week leading up to it. It is free to download, print and share, and it is designed for anyone: a person praying alone at the kitchen table, a community gathering in the evening, a parish marking the day at Mass, a staff team beginning a meeting.
What is in it
The booklet gives one page to each day from 11 to 18 October. Every page holds a word of Scripture, a few lines of reflection, a prayer, a question to carry through the day, and one small action.
The week moves through seven themes. It begins with See, because trafficking depends on the things we look past. Nameremembers Josephine Bakhita, who was kidnapped as a child and sold so many times that she forgot the name her parents gave her. Listen sits with survivors who are not believed. Labour looks honestly at what we buy, in a world where an estimated 27.6 million people were in forced labour on any given day in 2021. Welcome prays for those who migrate without safe routes, where debt and fear of deportation hand exploiters enormous power. Protect holds the children and young people who make up almost one in four of the victims registered in the EU. Loosen the Bonds falls on 17 October, the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty, and reaches down to the roots that make people reachable in the first place.
The week ends on the 18th with Freedom, and a prayer of the faithful that any parish can use.
Where it comes from
The reflections, prayers, questions and actions were written for RENATE. Alongside them, the booklet carries short quotations from the wider Church: Pope Francis speaking at the first day of prayer against trafficking in 2015, a line from Fratelli Tutti, the theme Pope Leo XIV chose for February 2026, and Bakhita’s own words about the weight of her chains. Each is credited where it appears.
Using it
Download the booklet, print it as an A5 folded booklet, and leave copies where people gather. Each day’s theme will also appear as a graphic on RENATE’s social media from 11 October, ready to share.
RENATE works across 31 countries in Europe, alongside 139 anti-trafficking networks. This booklet joins that work to prayer.
Ending trafficking begins with us.