Speak Out for Children in Crisis

Child soldiers Child labor Child survival Sexual exploitation of children

No child soldiers [(c) 06/01 /Kate Scannell /World Vision] Around the world, approximately 250,000 children are exploited in state-run armies, paramilitaries, and rebel groups. Learn more ... Speak out. Ask Congress to support the Child Soldier Prevention Act.		World Vision combats child sex tourism An estimated two million children are enslaved in the global commercial sex trade. U.S. citizens are among those from several wealthy countries who travel abroad for the purpose of having sex with children. Read more...

Protecting children: A biblical perspective on child rights

• 250 million children who work as child laborers to secure survival-level income for themselves and their families
• children traumatized by war
• children scarred by debt bondage, slavery or sexual exploitation.

Through the eyes of child

Some 200 youth from 27 impoverished municipalities in Peru set out to photographed their own communities in order to start a dialogue with government officials about children’s needs, problems and expectations, and how they can succeed amid the limitations imposed by their environments. >> See photos

We do understand the real pressures faced by children who become adults in rich societies changed by secularization and eroding social values.

To talk of “children’s rights” in these contexts may seem to further alienation between parents and children, bred by selfishness, materialism, and lack of responsibility.

Yet, World Vision’s own daily work is with children in places such as Phnom Penh, Cambodia, and Nairobi, Kenya. We struggle alongside millions of children who fight to survive in families earning less than $1 per day. World Vision and its donors share the pain and grief of societies where 25 percent of the children die before they reach their first birthdays.

World Vision’s response to these children is born from the prayer of our founder, Bob Pierce, who asked, “Let my heart be broken by the things that break the heart of God.” Living out that prayer, he began to raise funds for the orphans of the Korean War. More than half a century later, World Vision is determined to bring a Christian response to the needs of children suffering exploitation, abuse, violence, and trauma.

World Vision believes that each is precious to God. God’s burden of love for each of these children is not exhausted after the first nine months of their lives, nor even after the first 18 years. The murder of an eight-year-old child in the midst of war is as abhorrent as is the preventable death of a five-year-old child from diarrhea.

World Vision’s mission statement is a call “to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God” (Mic. 6:8), in a world of false priorities, gross inequalities and distorted values. World Vision represents Christians from many nations working together for a world where all people’s God-given potential is respected as the ultimate human right.

World Vision focuses advocacy efforts on three specific child protection issues: child soldiers, sexual exploitation of children, child survival, and child labor.


The above excerpt was taken from the introduction of the World Vision publication "Protecting Children: A Biblical Perspective on Child Rights".