Our children's future

It is generally agreed that a full-scale nuclear war would have disastrous effects, not only on belligerent nations but also on neutral countries. As long as there are nations that possess nuclear weapons,there is a danger that they will be used, either deliberately or through a technical or human error,or through uncontrollable escalation of a conflict. Only a nuclear-free world will be safe for our children and the biosphere.

We must address the threat of widespread famine

As glaciers melt in the Himalayas, depriving India and China of summer water supplies; as sea levels rise, drowning the fertile rice fields of Viet Nam and Bangladesh; as drought threatens the productivity of grain-producing regions of North America; and as the end of the fossil fuel era impacts modern high-yield agriculture, there is a threat of wide-spread famine. There is a danger that the1.5 billion people who are undernourished today will not survive an even more food-scarce future.

People threatened with famine will become refugees, desperately seeking entry into countries where food shortages are less acute. Wars, such as those currently waged in the Middle East, will add to the problem.

What can we do to avoid this crisis, or at least to reduce its severity? We must urgently address the problem of climate change; and we must shift money from military expenditure to the support of birth control programs and agricultural research. We must also replace the institution of war by a system of effective global governance and enforceable international laws.

We must eliminate child labour and child slavery

Worldwide 10 million children are in slavery, trafficking, debt bondage and other forms of forced labour, forced recruitment for armed conflict, prostitution, pornography and other illicit activities according to the International Labour Organization, (ILO). 151.6 million are estimated to be in child labour (ILO). 114 million child labourers are below the age of 14 (ILO). 72 million children are in hazardous work that directly endangers their health, safety and moral development (ILO). More than 700 million women alive today were married before their 18th birthday of which more than one in three (about 250 million) entered into union before age 15 (UNICEF). 300,000 children are estimated to serve as child soldiers, some even younger than 10 years old (UNICEF). 15.5 million children are in domestic work worldwide, the overwhelming majority of them girls (ILO).

Child labour is undesirable because it prevents children from receiving an education. Furthermore, when parents regard their children as a source of labour or income, it motivates them to have very large families and, given our finite earth, unlimited growth of population is a logical impossibility. Population growth increases the threat of large-scale famine as well as ecological catastrophe.

Child slavery is unacceptable, as is any form of slavery. Forced marriage, and very early marriage of girls as young as 9 in some countries are also unacceptable practices. The international community has a duty to see that existing laws against these practices are enforced.

We must reduce starvation and preventable disease

According to a recent report published by the World Health Organization, in 2018 alone, 15,000 children died per day before reaching their fifth birthday. The authors write in the introduction to the report:

It is especially unacceptable that these children and young adolescents died largely of preventable or treatable causes like infectious diseases and injuries when we have the means to prevent these deaths.