…there is a pressing challenge to be faced: Our children need
to be nurtured spiritually and to be integrated into the life of the Cause.
They should not be left to drift in a world so laden with moral dangers. In the
current state of society, children face a cruel fate. Millions and millions in
country after country are dislocated socially. Children find themselves
alienated by parents and other adults whether they live in conditions of wealth
or poverty. This alienation has its roots in a selfishness that is born of
materialism that is at the core of the godlessness seizing the hearts of people
everywhere. The social dislocation of children in our time is a sure mark of a
society in decline; this condition is not, however, confined to any race,
class, nation or economic condition—it cuts across them all. It grieves our
hearts to realize that in so many parts of the world children are employed as
soldiers, exploited as laborers, sold into virtual slavery, forced into
prostitution, made the objects of pornography, abandoned by parents centered on
their own desires, and subjected to other forms of victimization too numerous
to mention. Many such horrors are inflicted by the parents themselves upon
their own children. The spiritual and psychological damage defies estimation.
Our worldwide community cannot escape the consequences of these conditions.
This realization should spur us all to urgent and sustained effort in the
interests of children and the future.
- The Universal House of Justice (From
Ridvan 2000 message to the Baha’is of the World)
