Displaying items by tag: Children

Impoverished families trafficked from central Indian states are forced to make thousands of clay bricks daily in appalling conditions. Victims don’t speak out due to intimidation. Officials can’t ascertain the truth. Fortunately, one 13-year-old boy told officials how he worked nine hours a day. His courage emboldened others. Teenage girls described carrying heavy stacks of bricks on their heads. A single mother shared the agony of not getting medical care for her sick child. Soon the local authorities had enough information to complete a rescue operation and bring the victims to safety. On 23 March, IJM reported, ‘nearly 150 children, women and men were rescued from bonded labour slavery in a single Indian brick kiln. Years ago, local leaders would not admit slavery still existed, let alone help families in need. Today the families are receiving medical care, food, ID cards, police protection and release certificates that break any bonds to former owners.’

The Just Finance Foundation published a report on the impact of its LifeSavers programme in 30 primary schools across England. It said, ‘Primary school pupils should receive compulsory lessons on how to manage money in response to growing levels of financial insecurity and problem debt in the UK. Learning where money comes from, when to spend, and how to save is vital to children’s ability to navigate adult life and should be a mandatory part of personal, social, health, and economic education in primary schools.’ Currently 40% of UK adults have less than £100 in savings. Difficulties managing money are becoming a mainstream issue. LifeSavers equips children to manage money wisely now and in the future, providing training, support and resources which aid teachers to deliver financial education to all year-groups. It helps set up and manage school savings clubs, and encourages parental and wider community engagement. It says today’s children face the most challenging and complex financial landscape of a generation.

In February the BBC reported that some schools are persuading parents to home-school troubled children so that their exam results do not count against the school. They are worried about poor Ofsted inspections, league table positions, and even losing their jobs because of academy takeovers. On 4 March the Times reported that religious extremists are exploiting lax home education laws to expose children to hate-filled material at scores of unregistered schools. Extremist texts seized from the schools allege that boys and girls can marry once they reach puberty, and one blames rapes on the way women dress. At least 350 unregistered schools have been set up across Britain, according to Ofsted, and over 50,000 children in the UK are currently being home-schooled.

On 1 January a petition calling for the banning of medical intervention to change gender surgically or medically by hormones for people below the age of 18 was sent to the Department of Health and Social Care. Responding to the petition on 20 February, the department appears not to have changed its policy, stating that a person under 16 is competent to give valid consent to a particular intervention if they have sufficient intelligence to enable them to understand fully what is proposed. There are no such sentiments when it comes to protecting under-18s from making choices they might in the future regret with regard to purchasing tobacco and alcohol; also, sex under the age of 16 remains a criminal offence.

The CofE has called for a ban on betting adverts before the 9pm watershed, in a bid to tackle the growing ‘moral crisis’ facing children and young people. Rev Alan Smith said, ‘There is a lot of evidence that young people are seeing extraordinary levels of advertising, which is normalising and socialising gambling. That is a moral issue, one which we as a society need to stand back and reflect about. We will reap a terrible harvest if gambling is “normalised” for children and young people.’ The Church is calling for social media giants to take greater responsibility. According to official figures, children see an average of 185 gambling adverts a year, and one in five adverts broadcast across 25 British football matches are for betting firms. The world has changed dramatically, with a huge rise in gambling adverts on every sort of media.

Christmas can be financially or emotionally stressful for some families, ‘I married the wrong person’ can be a cry for help when it comes from a person unable to cope with stresses this time of year. There is a battle over marriages today, and the enemy would love nothing more than to destroy families and damage the children caught up in difficult family relationships. We can pray for social workers and councillors looking after the interests of children involved in family breakdowns, separations or court proceedings. Cafcass is an employer of social workers who look after the interests of children involved in family court proceedings. It reported that in November 2017 it received a total of 3,811 new private cases.

International news outlets tell us that the Syrian crisis has created a lost generation of children. But we can pray that this generation will be found by Jesus. Mission agency Cry Out Now has prepared a 30-day prayer guide to help us pray for Syrian children. Its vision is especially that other children will pray for them. God sees children’s faith when they pray; often it is very powerful! Our God is a God of hope, and His desire is that out of the turmoil and chaos of the Syrian crisis, He will have a people that belong to Him.

Children are dealing with questions like ‘You look like a boy or girl, but do you feel you really are a boy or girl? You can choose who or what you want to be’. On trains in the Netherlands the announcer no longer says ‘ladies and gentlemen’, but ‘travellers’. Many churches avoid the gender-neutrality topic, hoping they will not have to deal with it; in other churches the ‘law of relativism’ has entered and everything is possible. Christians believe that God created man and woman, and marriage is for a man and woman. We are living in a broken world, but when the brokenness becomes the normal standard, we should be awake as a Church and stand up and fight. There is more going on than we can see with our natural eyes and our pastoral hearts.

According to the Uganda Demographic and Health Survey (2012), more than half of 15- to 19-year old girls have experienced physical or sexual violence. In an effort to reduce the large number of children who remain exposed to abuse, exploitation, and violence, International Justice Mission (IJM) will work to set up community level referral mechanisms, legal counselling, and aftercare for child survivors of sexual violence. While child protection continues to be a critical challenge in Uganda, this project will enhance services and build strong violence prevention programmes for child survivors and those most at risk of sexual violence.

Rachel's daughter was raped by a boy at her school. He was arrested, bailed, and put back into lessons, alongside his victim, the following day. ‘A rape victim is already in a terrible place, but to be expected to be back in the same space as the rapist is terrible,’ Rachel said. The Government is writing interim guidelines for schools to prevent such things happening, but campaigners say it is taking too long. Rachel said that the school seemed to have no policy in place, and dealt with the situation ‘extremely badly’. She had to instigate a meeting and, despite her efforts, they did not prioritise her daughter's needs but were keen to protect her assailant’s rights to education. Over 5,500 sex crimes in UK schools were reported in the last three years, including nearly 4,000 physical assaults and 600+ rapes. See