Displaying items by tag: United Nations

Warm greetings to you in the name of Christ our Lord!

These are exciting times for the Stop Child Witch Accusation coalition. The movement is gathering momentum, and more and more people are becoming aware of witchcraft accusations against children and committing to take action on the issue. 'The Heart of the Matter', our new training resource to help church leaders address witchcraft accusations is nearly ready, following a set of pilot events which exceeded all our expectations. And later this month, Pastor Ngolo of EPED and BCT's Carolyn Gent will represent SCWA at a United Nations workshop on witchcraft accusations, in Geneva.

With so many exciting and significant events happening around SCWA, and so much potential to scale-up what the coalition is doing, we need the support of our prayer partners more than ever. So we are inviting you to join us in a short prayer campaign in which we will lift to God our praise and petition and ask him to make possible what others say is impossible – bringing an end to this form of abuse against children. The campaign, ‘Standing in the Gap’, will run from now until January 2018. In this period, we will send you two bulletins a month, highlighting new points for prayer.

You will find the first batch of prayer points at: http://stop-cwa.org/posts/prayer-bulletin-no1-2017

We have seen on many occasions that God does amazing things when we pray. Thank you for standing with us in this new prayer initiative. I would be so grateful John if you would circulate this to others in your prayer networks, so that they too can join with us in praying for God to stir and equip his people to bring an end to this form of child suffering and abuse.

Grace and peace.

Susie Howe - Director
The Bethany Children’s Trust
http://www.bethanychildrenstrust.org.uk

Christianity is “the world’s most oppressed faith community,” and anti-Christian persecution in the worst regions has reached “a new peak” claims a new report by Aid to the Church in Need.

“In terms of the numbers of people involved, the gravity of the crimes committed and their impact,” notes the report, “it is clear that the persecution of Christians is today worse than at any time in history. Not only are Christians more persecuted than any other faith group, but ever-increasing numbers are experiencing the very worst forms of persecution.”

The report, “Persecuted and Forgotten?”, compiles analysis from a number of sources, including Open Door’s World Watch List and the Pew Forum’s Social Hostilities Index. In 12 of the 13 countries reviewed, the situation for Christians was worse in overall terms in the period 2015–17 than within the preceding two years. The only exception was Saudi Arabia, where “the situation was already so bad it could scarcely get any worse.”

The report claims that the United Nations and Western governments failed to offer Christians in countries such as Iraq and Syria the emergency help they needed as genocide got underway. “If Christian organizations and other institutions had not filled the gap,” says the report, “the Christian presence could already have disappeared in Iraq and other parts of the Middle East.”

ISIS and other Islamist militant groups have committed genocide against Christians in Iraq and Syria. The militants are being defeated in many areas, though, which is making it possible for some Christian communities to return to their homes. “The defeat of [ISIS] and other Islamists in major strongholds of the Middle East offers the last hope of recovery for Christian groups threatened with extinction,” says the report. “Many would not survive another similar violent attack.”

Christians have also suffered increased violence and oppression as a result of a rise in religious nationalism. In India, persecution has risen sharply since the 2014 rise to power of the right-wing Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party.

The worst persecution, though, continues to occur in North Korea. As the report points out, the “unspeakable atrocities” against Christians include enforced starvation, enforced abortion, and reports of believers being hung on crosses over a fire and others being crushed under a steamroller.

Download the report here: https://www.churchinneed.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/persecution-1-1.pdf

100 babies will be murdered in the time it takes us to read this article.

We're just hours from a major U.N. deadline to defend unborn babies.

It's estimated that now more than 28 million defenseless babies have been needlessly slaughtered worldwide by abortion - over a million by Planned Parenthood alone.

It's horrendous. It's sickening. If we don't act, more babies will die.

Even worse, the U.N. is poised to rewrite the international legal definition of the "right to life" to become the right to abortion.

For decades we've been defending life worldwide. We're aggressively engaged in two major pro-life cases at the U.S. Supreme Court - one could save lives; the other could devastate Big Abortion.

Today, we have a critical opportunity to defend babies globally. In just moments, we are making an urgent oral intervention at the U.N. defending the defenseless. And in just weeks, we're making a massive U.N. legal filing…

Following the horrific violations of human rights that occurred during World War II, much of the world recognized the importance of establishing laws to protect the inherent right to life of all persons. As such, Article 6 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) states, “Every human being has the inherent the right to life. This right shall be protected by law.” Yet the U.N. Human Rights Committee is rewriting the definition of the “right to life” to mean the right to an abortion: the right to kill innocent children.

The ICCPR is a treaty that was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in 1966 and went into force in 1976. The ICCPR is part of the International Bill of Human Rights and enumerates the right to life, freedom of religion, and freedom of speech. It has been ratified by 169 States.

The U.N. Human Rights Committee is attempting revise its General Comment on Article 6 to now include support for abortions and even assisted suicide. The draft forbids States from introducing “burdensome requirements on women seeking to undergo abortion,” and provides that States “must provide safe access to abortion.”

Babies are being slaughtered worldwide at a horrific pace, and it is estimated that 27 million babies have been aborted across the world already this year. This revision by the U.N. Humans Rights Committee will only further advance the slaughter of innocent babies across the world.

It is not only the unborn that are at risk, but also the elderly and sick. In the draft, they also include protections for assisted suicide: “State parties [may allow] [should not prevent] medical professionals to provide medical treatment of the medical means in order to facilitate the termination of life of [catastrophically] afflicted adults, such as the mortally wounded or terminally ill, who experience severe physical or mental pain and suffering and wish to die with dignity.”

This is just the latest move in the attack against the sanctity of life. Recently, we have witnessed Iceland embrace the practice of eugenics in order to “cure” Down Syndrome through abortion. In England, doctors decided to take Baby Charlie off of life support and leave him to die even when there were other options.

Every life is precious. Every baby deserves to live. Now we have an opportunity – and a responsibility – to act.

The ACLJ, along with our international affiliates, have been asked to submit critical legal filings at the U.N. to defend the lives of unborn babies. This is the most critical U.N. filing for life we’ve ever made.

American Center for Law and Justice website www.aclj.org

Jay Sekulow - ACLJ Chief Counsel

Pray for the ACLJ and other pro-life organizations to be effective and united in theiradvocacy with those in political power to overturn rampant abortion around the world. These are God’s beloved kids that the “liar and murderer from the beginning” wants to destroy so they do not fulfil their God-given destiny.

In a keynote speech at the UN General Assembly, the Prime Minister said Britain will continue to be the second biggest contributor to the UN, but warned that 30% of the annual £90 million funding for agencies would be ring-fenced for those showing ‘sufficient results’. She said the UN must change ‘in order to meet the challenges of the 21st century’. This echoed President Trump's earlier message that financial contributions to the UN were now under threat. Mrs May vowed Britain ‘will never let anyone destroy our way of life’, following recent terror attacks. She condemned the Assad regime's use of chemical weapons in Syria and North Korea’s controversial nuclear weapons programme, and warned Donald Trump that withdrawing from the Paris climate change treaty ranked alongside North Korea’s nuclear missile tests as a threat to global security.

Theresa May has told the UN that people need to wake up to the horrors of modern-day slavery, and victims must have confidence to come forward and be given the support they need. She added, ‘Modern slavery will only be defeated by making more people aware of the horrific abuses going on in their own communities’. The Prime Minister has the power to do something about this on the international platform. Two years ago, as home secretary, she brought in the most up-to-date laws in the world to crack down on modern slave-drivers. On 19 September she spoke out in an attempt to secure a global commitment by the UN to acknowledge the scandal and unite with tough action against the perpetrators. She urged leaders ‘to work collaboratively and internationally’, and ‘to look at their own situation’.

The 61st session of the Commission on the Status of Women, taking place in New York from 13 to 24 March, will focus on 'Women’s economic empowerment in the changing world of work.’ This session gathers together global leaders, NGOs, private sector actors, UN partners, and activists from around the world, focusing on the status of rights and empowerment of all women and girls. It takes place as the world of work is changing, urged by innovation, globalisation and increasing human mobility. At the same time, it is adversely impacted by climate change, humanitarian crises, rising informality of labour, and economic inequality. For sustainable and healthy economies, the world of work must empower women and remove the persisting inequalities that hold them back from getting on equal footing with men.