The struggle for the rights of children is not just a
matter of feeling sorry for the people of this country or that; it is a
common interrogation. There is plenty of complicity—and we are not
exempt. Satyarthi also has an economic mission that challenges the West.
What does it mean to set up a factory in a country where children don’t
go to school, or to buy clothes without looking at the labels? For that
matter, in the United States, what does it mean when children are
pulled into the criminal-justice system and not treated as children at
all? Whose children are all children?
The Peace
Prize has often been broadly understood; children’s rights fits well
into its mandate of increasing understanding between nations. It’s not
only an abstract matter, though. War takes children out of school,
whether they are refugees, as in Syria, or targets of attack, like the
Nigerian girls kidnapped by Boko Haram. Children who have no other
options are also likelier recruits for war. The economic exploitation of
children is also raw abuse, backed up by coercion and often violence.
School is a rebuke to war; so is caring about the futures of other
people’s children.
Things we take for granted in life may be a desperate hope far yet to be reached for someone. Lord, help me to have Jesus' true compassion and love and earnestly pray for those who are in the midst of distress and suffering.
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