Wrigley, D. (1995). What on earth are we doing to our children? An appeal to the nation’s conscience. Manchester, England: The Maranatha Community.

 OVERVIEW

 A civilization can be judged by the way in which it treats its children. Children are weak and vulnerable. They readily absorb all that is presented to them and depend primarily upon adults for protection and guidance.…Childhood is a time of formation...

Today we are witnessing the tragedy of systematic and remorseless damage being inflicted upon the lives of children and young people worldwide.

The truth is we are robbing them of their dignity and innocence. We are exploiting them. We are forcing adult ideas upon them. We are abusing and confusing them. We are depriving them of faith and a moral framework for life.

We are polluting their minds and teaching them vulgarity in language and lifestyle. We are desensitizing them to violence. We are poisoning them with squalid and degrading sexual images. We are implanting into our children wrong standards—greed, lust, violence, dirtiness, bad manners, lack of consideration for others and lack of respect for themselves.

Whilst our children are being corrupted by the standards of a selfish, materialistic society, most of us remain deafeningly silent.

STARTLING STATISTICS

• 40,000,000 Children are aborted every year in the world. (United Nations)
• More than 17,000,000 children die each year of starvation and malnutrition. (United Nations)
• The infant mortality rate per thousand is 7 in Northern Europe, 108 in Eastern Africa. (United Nations, Population Fund Information Sheet )
• Vast numbers of children have died violent deaths. In Rwanda the pro-government Radio-Libre Mille Collines repeatedly encouraged the Hutu population to kill Tutsi children by broadcasting "To destroy the big rats, you must kill the little rats." (Church of England Newspaper, August 19, 1994)
• Indiscriminate attacks on communties during 1992 world conflicts severely wounded or disabled half a million children. (UNICEF, quoted in The Independent, July 11, 1993)
• 35 Countries have used child soldiers in the past ten years. (Save the Children, "Children at War," November 16, 1994)
• In Africa numerous children have been brought into army service and, during the war in Mozambique, at least 8,000 children were forcibly recruited to fight with the Renamo military forces. (BBC and Save the Children, October 24, 1994)
• According to UNICEF (March 29, 1994) "at least 100 million children worldwide are believed to live at least part of their time on the streets.…These street children are first and foremost working children."
• There are an estimated 1.2 million street children in the Philippines, according to a 1991 report by the Department of Social Welfare and Development. (Jubilee Action)
• Child labor has 100-200 million children working worldwide; many of them work under conditions that approach slave labor—an estimated 44 million in India and 12 million in Nigeria. (United Nations Children’s Fund Information Sheet 29 March 1994)

The Bonded Labour Liberation Front in India estimate that 200,000 to 300,000 children are working in virtual slavery in central India. Similar numbers may be working in India, and up to 150,000 in Nepal. Wages are very low, working conditions are terrible—and they are separated from their families.

As a result many of the children who may begin working as young as 6 or 7 years old are severely ill by the time they are adults. Their eyesight is damaged and lung diseases are common as a result of dirt and fluff from the wool used in the carpets.
—Anti-Slavery International, November, 1994

As a result, the hand-made woolen carpet industry has been one of the fastest growing industries in India, Pakistan, Nepal, and other Asian countries.
—Anti-Slavery International, November, 1994

• In many West African countries children as young as 5 years old (usually girls) are deprived of their childhood and used as servants. Many Muslims of West Africa entrust their sons to a religious leader (marabout) who teaches them the Koran, demands their service, and forces them to live in squalid conditions. (Anti-Slavery International, May 1993 and 1994)
• More than 250 million copies of child pornography videos are circulating world-wide. (The Independent, January 19, 1994)
• Thea Pumbroek was found dead in 1984 in a Holiday Inn bathroom in Amsterdam. She died of a massive overdose of cocaine after she had been violated sexually in every possible way to provide film and picture entertainment for paedophiles worldwide. She was 6 years old. (Child Pornography: An Investigation, Tim Tate)
• The 1986 Conference of the International Association of Democratic Lawyers and the Commission of Human Rights meeting in Stockholm was told that every year one million children are traded on the international pornography market, some as young as 3 years. (The Growing Menace of Child Pornography, The National Viewers and Listeners Association.)
• Child pornography is now easily available to everyone with a home computer via the Internet. One English paedophile who abused more than 200 girls, admitted, "I learnt in particular how to use a modem...which helped me get what I needed."
• Much child pornography contains scenes of childen being tortured as well as sexually abused.
• 1,000,000 Children are lured and forced into child prostitution each year, and there are an estimated 10,000,000 child prostitutes worldwide. (Norwegian Government Report quoted by Jubilee Action, 1994)
• There are over 40,000 child prostitutes in Vietnam. (Jubilee Action, 1994)
• There are over 200,000 child prostitutes in Thailand. (ECPAT)
• 50% of Thai child prostitutes are HIV positive. (Time Magazine, June 21, 1993)
• More than 10,000 of the child prostitutes in Sri Lanka are boys aged between 8 and 16 years old. (Dr. John Lin in "Celebration of Life", June/July 1993)
• "It is now possible to drive into almost any big city in Britain by day or night and buy a child to have sex with." (London Mail, November 21, 1993)
• In 1980 the Deputy prime Minister of Thailand, Boonchoo Rojanasthian, urged his provincial governors to boost tourism by encouraging "certain entertainments, which some of you may find disgusting and embarrassing because they are related to sexual pleasure." (Quoted by Hansard, March 10, 1993)
• The UNICEF Information Sheet (March 29, 1994) states: "The criminal exploitation of children through prostitution has become a multi-million pound global growth industry driven by poverty, greed, and a callous demand for sex. It destroys millions of young lives in developing and industrialized countries and until now far too little has been done to stop this sordid activity."

QUESTIONS FOR REFLECTION AND DISCUSSION

1. What most touches you personally in this information gathered by the Maranatha Community?
2. What statistics above come closest to your own work?
3. To what extent can you speak out and act in behalf of exploited or abused young people?
4. On what basis can pluralistic, secular societies judge individuals and systems that rob children of their dignity?

IMPLICATIONS

1. Children and young people around the world need advocates today.
2. Youth workers cannot be effective advocates for the young without being informed through adequate research.