(ANS - Madrid) – Yesterday 16 April was World Day against Child Slavery. Children now face a new threat from terrorist groups that recruit children for their purposes. More than nine million children and teenagers in the world live as slaves. This is the cause and also the consequence of poverty. There is an absolute need to eradicate this scourge that oppresses generations of children around the world.

More than nine million children are slaves in the world: 5.7 million are forced to work, almost 2 million are sexually exploited, over one million are victims of trafficking, and 300,000 are recruited as soldiers. All these are young people whose childhood has been ruined.

Now there is a new threat from terrorist groups like Boko Haram or the self-styled Islamic State ... or from military groups like those in northern Mali who kidnap children and enlist them among their ranks, according to reports from the United Nations.

"These are children without opportunities, abandoned by their families, who live in poverty. The terrorists offer them money and give them a status and a purpose in life," according to some Salesian missionaries.

Children and young people who become part of these terrorist networks have no choice and, in many cases, are enslaved and undergo all kind of abuse.

"We have already met some children who were used to smuggle weapons to the border," the General Directorate for the Protection of Children in Togo told the Salesian missionaries a few days ago. This is a situation that aggravates the reality of children in West Africa, where the number of victims of child trafficking and child slavery has increased in recent years.

The Salesians face this reality every day and try to improve the lives of thousands of children and young people through youth centres, schools and projects that try through education to restore their childhood, their joy and their hope for a future full of opportunities.

Additional information on the condition of children is available on the website of the Mission Office in Madrid.

Published 17/04/2015