What Is Wrong With Us: The world must be ashamed that childhood has become so dangerous for so many children
We Called Them Our Future, Then Looked Away While Their Present Burned. We speak endlessly of children as "our future," yet millions are being sexually abused, trafficked, forced onto streets, married too young, impregnated as children, pushed into hazardous labour or commercial sexual exploitation, and left to negotiate adult dangers with childhood bodies. UNICEF estimates that more than 370 million girls and women alive today experienced rape or sexual assault before turning 18, including 79 million in sub-Saharan Africa. The Sustainable Development Goals promised to end violence against children by 2030. With barely four years remaining, the uncomfortable question is no longer whether the world loves children. It is whether our budgets, institutions, families and justice systems prove that love when children need protection most. We have become extraordinarily good at saying beautiful things about children. Children are our future. Children are blessings. Children are tomorrow's leaders. We dress them in uniforms, photograph them on commemorative days, recite their rights, and close political speeches by promising them a better world.