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Children in Crisis

“Unless the investment in children is made, all of humanity’s most fundamental long-term problems will remain fundamental long-term problems.”—United Nations Children’s Fund.

CHILDREN all over the world are in crisis. Convincing evidence of the magnitude of this tragedy was presented at the World Congress Against Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children held in Stockholm, Sweden, in 1996 and attended by representatives of 130 countries. For example, it was documented that in many parts of the world, there are millions of young girls, some even as young as ten years of age, who are forced to work as prostitutes.

The Australian Melbourne University Law Review noted that such forced prostitution has been called “one of the worst contemporary forms of slavery.” After years of physical, mental, and emotional battering, these girls are scarred for life. In most cases the girls submit to this brutality just because they want to eat to stay alive. Death by starvation is the other alternative. Sadly, many of these waifs were forced into prostitution by their own poverty-stricken parents, who sold them for money.

Adding to this obvious tragedy for children is the often hotly debated issue of child labor. In Asia, South America, and elsewhere and in some migrant communities in the United States, children even as young as five years of age are forced into what can be termed “slave labor.” They work like little robots in appalling conditions that ravage their young bodies and minds. Most have no education, no parental love, no homes to feel secure in, no toys, no parks to play in. Many are callously exploited by their parents.

Child Soldiers and Orphanages

Compounding the tragedy even further, there has been an increase in the use of child soldiers in guerrilla armies. Children may be kidnapped or may be purchased in slave markets and then systematically brutalized, at times by being made to watch murder. Some have even been ordered to kill their own parents or to take drugs in order to heighten their killer instinct.

The following is a sample of the effects of the brainwashing that has been done on thousands of child soldiers in Africa. This chilling conversation took place between a social worker and a boy soldier who was apparently trying to preserve what was left of his innocence:

“Did you kill? ‘No.’

Did you have a gun? ‘Yes.’

Did you aim the gun? ‘Yes.’

Did you fire it? ‘Yes.’

What happened? ‘They just fell down.’”

No wonder someone has suggested that the word “infantry” could take on a whole new meaning as one looks at soldiers aged six and up. It has been reported that even as far back as 1988, child soldiers numbered some 200,000 around the world.

It is said that between the years 1988 and 1992, in an orphanage in an Asian country, 550 children, mostly girls, were selected to die by starvation. A doctor reports: “Those orphans had no pills to kill their pain. Even as they lay dying, they were tied to their beds.”

What of Europe? A country there was rocked by the discovery of an international child pornography ring that abducted girls for sexual exploitation. Some unfortunate girls were murdered or starved to death.

These reports certainly indicate that many countries have a real problem with abuse and exploitation of children. But is it an exaggeration to say that this is a worldwide problem? The next article will answer that question.

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A child soldier in Liberia

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John Gunston/Sipa Press

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At a brick factory in Colombia, children act as human wheelbarrows

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UN PHOTO 148000/Jean Pierre Laffont

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FAO photo/F. Botts