We need to listen to children

Graphic: Needpix

TODAY is World Children’s Day, and as with every other Children’s Day, and every day of the year, my heart breaks for every child who is not able to go to school or drops out of school, who is still living in poverty or goes to school hungry, who is denied an identity or a home, who is abused by the very systems developed to protect children, who is denied her/his basic rights.

The basic rights of all children are envisioned in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC). These are not some foreign ideals or concepts but the basic rights we would expect for any and every person, found in all cultures, most religions, and any humane society.