wfn.org | Title: Restore dignity and fullness of life to all children

["WCC Media" <Media@wcc-coe.org>]

World Council of Churches 7 Press Update
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE - 29/01/2004 - pu-04-09

Restore dignity and fullness of life to all children church consultation
urges

Free photo available - see below

As the world hails the intensification of globalization, the number of
children living on the streets has steeply increased, participants in a
21-25 January inter-regional consultation organized by the World Council of
Churches (WCC) and the Christian Conference of Asia (CCA) reported. The
consultation, on "Fullness of life and dignity of children: focus on street
children", took place at Virar, near Bombay, India.

Participants - church leaders from Africa, Asia, the Caribbean, Europe,
Latin America, and the Middle East - said that the plight of street
children calls churches to engage even more actively with and for such
vulnerable children, and gave several examples of churches working to
protect children's dignity and their right to a decent life.

Despite tremendous growth in economic activity and the globalization of
trade and capital, despite the penetration of transnational corporations
into every corner of the world and the increase of productivity, the
world's poor have not benefited, and the children of the poor suffer the
negative impact of this much-popularized development growth, the church
leaders observed.

They testified that millions of children living and working on the streets
come to hate the society that has rejected them. But they also gave
examples of churches playing a vital role in responding to the cry of "a
generation lost in the wilderness", reuniting street children with their
families and reintegrating them into society. They also emphasized that
churches need to move away from a traditional charity-based approach as the
magnitude of the problems faced by children intensifies.

Fr Gabriel Cazacu of the Rumanian Orthodox Church, who works among street
children, said that market-oriented economic reforms in Rumania have
created large numbers of street children, more and more of whom are
addicted to drugs like poisonous glue. The Orthodox Church has been
providing care and protection to hundreds of street children. "The love and
affection they have received has helped them to blossom," Fr Cazacu added.

"African children's lives are becoming much more vulnerable due to [*]
rising intra-state conflict and loosely organized fighting groups, and to
HIV/AIDS", said Emmanuel Motsamal, who coordinates a National Council of
Churches in Botswana programme on children.

Caribbean Council of Churches president Oluwakemi Linda Banks reported that
"the changing pattern in social and family lives and moral values, and the
increasing breakdown of the family have affected the upbringing of children
in many parts of the Caribbean".

Joan Arelis Figueroa of the Church of the Disciples of Christ, Puerto Rico,
also reported that the number of child workers and street children in Latin
America has increased. Begging and juvenile delinquency are common in most
Latin American countries, and increasing violence among these children is
the result of promiscuity, growing poverty and hunger, she said.

WCC programme executive for Latin America and Caribbean Marta Palma
provided additional statistics on how children are being mistreated and
exploited in Latin American countries, but said that several rehabilitation
and counselling centres for children have been initiated by Latin American
churches.

Chuleepran Pearsons of the Church of Christ in Thailand (CCT), and CCA
executive secretary Josef Widyatmaja observed that sexual exploitation of
children, including prostitution, pornography and trafficking has become a
serious problem in Asia ever since economic liberalization was launched by
Asian governments. Several Asian countries have been experiencing a wave of
sex tourism, which destroys the dignity of thousands of Asian children
every year."

The CCT has opened up new avenues to asylum and foster care for many
abandoned children and those whose parents are affected by HIV/AIDS,
Chuleepran reported.

Clarissa Chang of the Council of Churches in Malaysia said some churches in
her country have motivated congregation members to foster children who need
care and protection. And the programme director the Church of North India
ministry to children, Sanjana Das, described the dedication of several
local congregations to fulfilling the basic needs of vulnerable children
through custodial care.

In a keynote address at the start of the consultation, WCC programme
executive for Asia Mathews George Chunakara pointed out that "Despite all
the international instruments existing now to protect and promote the
rights of the child, especially the Convention on the Rights of the Child
of 1989, which has been ratified by 191 countries, more than 250 million
children around the world are on the streets, and most of them are in Asia
and Latin America".

Inaugurating the consultation, CCA president Metropolitan Dr Joseph Mar
Iranaeus of the Mar Thoma Syrian Church in India said that "As we are
surrounded by millions of children who have lost dignity and fullness of
life in their day-to-day lives, churches around the world should respond to
God's call to be the partners in His mission to restore the dignity and
fullness of life of all children." These are God's gifts, and "children
deserve them as much as any other human beings," he said.

A free photo is available at:
http://www.wcc-coe.org/wcc/what/regional/kidignity.html 

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 more than 120 countries in all continents from virtually all Christian
 traditions. The Roman Catholic Church is not a member church but works
 cooperatively with the WCC. The highest governing body is the assembly,
 which meets approximately every seven years. The WCC was formally
 inaugurated in 1948 in Amsterdam, Netherlands. Its staff is headed by
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