A side event at this year’s Commission on the Status of Women at U.N. headquarters in New York was offered by the government of Iceland and the Council of Europe, a human rights organization. The event highlighted the importance of protecting the rights of migrant, refugee and asylum-seeking women and girls. Marja Routanen from the Council of Europe hosted the panel, introducing the prime minister of Iceland, Katrín Jakobsdóttir, who’s led the country since 2017.
In the days before the Rev. Cathy Chang, a mission co-worker serving in the Philippines, was red-tagged having been accused of supporting groups perceived as terrorists through stickers and a tarpaulin affixed at her home in Quezon City, she spoke on the scourge of human trafficking with the hosts of “A Matter of Faith: A Presby Podcast.”
The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) Office of Public Witness (OPW) is asking people to contact their congressional representatives and urge them to support people in Ukraine and refugees and asylum seekers following Russia’s invasion of the country.
It’s considered the worst humanitarian crisis on the planet today.
In 2018, the United Nations estimated that 14 million people in Yemen were on the brink of starvation. UNICEF estimates that 1.8 million Yemeni children suffer from acute malnutrition. Thirty thousand die each year.
In the coming weeks, government leaders from several countries around the world will begin receiving mail from Presbyterian churches containing prints or paper cut-outs of red hands. It’s part of the Red Hand Campaign, an initiative to encourage countries to stop the practice of turning children into armed soldiers.
One modern form of human trafficking is the recruitment and use of child soldiers. The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) estimates that 300,000 children under age 18 are forced to engage in armed conflicts around the world. The United Nations and the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) have taken strong stances against the use of child soldiers. In 2002, the UN adopted the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which aims to keep children from being recruited and used in hostilities. Countries ratifying the Protocol commit to not recruiting children under 18 for military service and to taking all possible measures to prevent such recruitment. To support the Protocol, the Presbyterian Ministry at the United Nations coordinates a Red Hands Campaign, in which more than 300,000 red hands have been made and delivered to world leaders to proclaim that children should not be used as soldiers.
