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“Children need to know their place in the church. And that is at the front, not the back”, said Bishop Raphael Opoko from the Methodist Church of Nigeria, speaking at a round table discussion on promoting the rights of children held on 19 November at the Ecumenical Centre in Geneva.
“Children should be singing at the front of the church, reading the liturgy and even preaching,” said Bishop Opoko, who serves on both the WCC’s Executive Committee and the Central Committee.
The Nigerian church leader made his pitch during an event aimed at achieving a stronger voice for children’s rights seeking to forge practical ways for the World Council of Churches (WCC) and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) to work together.
This was the first meeting since the WCC and UNICEF signed an historic agreement to work together in September.
The November gathering was a seminar held a day ahead of the anniversary of the Convention on the Rights of the Child on 20 November with WCC and UNICEF partners and stakeholders from around the world.
At the seminar, participants from near and far praised the initiative and shared their appreciation of the meeting, as well as the partnership with UNICEF.
WCC general secretary Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit noted, “Some weeks ago UNICEF’s Liza Barrie and myself signed an MOU…. This is something new for the work for our children and for their lives today. Children are not the others. We all have a child in us”. Tveit said.
“Children are our life,” Tveit added, while observing that, “many of us are also parents, some grandparents.”
Liza Barrie, chief of UNICEF’s Civil Society Partnerships Unit, rued how millions of children are denied their rights and caught in war, both as bystanders and even as targets, and how the climate is changing the world in unprecedented ways.
Barrie explained that UNICEF for some time has valued working in partnership with faith groups, and cited the importance of the relationship with churches, seeing the timing of the “ambitious agreement” as “strategic”.
“Faith communities do tremendous work on the ground. Churches know what is happening in communities in ways that almost no other network does. They have women’s groups. They have children’s groups. They are always part of the community,” Barrie said.
“We are natural partners,” Barrie added, pointing to mapping work done on UNICEF’s relationship with faith communities supported by Caterina Tino, a UNICEF partnerships specialist on engagement with religious communities.
Barrie was pleased to hear of the WCC’s support of the UN Sustainable Development Summit at which on 25 September 2015 world leaders adopted the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
Sustainable Development Goals
The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development includes a set of 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to end poverty, fight inequality and injustice, and tackle climate change by 2030. Two of the goals include the principles that are in the WCC-UNICEF commitment to work together.
The WCC-UNICEF agreement focuses on two major issues - violence against children and climate change, and Nigeria has been chosen as a country for a pilot project.
Bishop Opoko said, “I would have loved to have had kids here so we could listen to what they have to say. Not just 18-year-olds.
“It is very important for us to try to hear from the children themselves. Children need to be heard and need to be seen being heard,” and Faith Based Organizations (FBOs) need to note that children have something to contribute as gifts to humanity from God.
“We must have a stronger voice for children rights and a stronger voice for children for their rights” Bishop Opoko concluded.
Participants took part in the start of the practical implementation of the partnership signed on 18 September between the WCC and UNICEF, pledging to support children’s rights together. The aim is to build awareness about the partnership and its potential to prevent violence.
Participants included members of WCC Executive Committee, the Commission of Churches on International Affairs’ Working Group on Children’s Rights, member churches, specialized ministries and the staff leadership group, as well as UNICEF resource people.
They included resources persons from the Lutheran World Federation (LWF), ACT Alliance, the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), UNESCO, ECPAT International, World Vision, and the VIVA network.
Archbishop Emeritus Anders Wejryd, WCC president for Europe, from the Church of Sweden was the moderator for the day.
“For too many people family values are linked to denying rights to children,” and “if we don’t involve children early they do not become actors, but objects,” Wejryd commented.
Wejryd also took note of the reference in discussion to the need for a theology built in around children’s rights that grows out of Christianity and an ecumenical movement “that pulls us together, for the world”.
In discussing the principles and tools for child-friendly churches, Dr Agnes Abuom from the Anglican Church of Kenya, moderator of the WCC Central Committee and a member of the Executive Committee, noted that the importance of children was a central focus at the WCC’s 10th Assembly in Busan in 2013.
Abuom said the presence of WCC Executive Committee members and officers was proof of their commitment to working with UNICEF. “Violence continues to divide the human race particularly against defenseless children”, Abuom commented.
“We want to own and internalize these principles as part of our journey on the Pilgrimage of Justice and Peace. We have to seriously engage with the membership and see that the capacities for children are lifted,” said Abuom.
Violence against children
Abuom explained that violence against children in her region, including by carers of working parents, and corporal punishment has been a challenge to churches and faith communities.
Chris Dodd, coordinator of UK-based Churches for Non-Violence, who also spoke at the round-table panel said “Our organization is very broad but focuses on ending corporal punishment for children, because we believe it is a key strategy to end all violence against them.”
Frederique Seidel, WCC special advisor on child rights said, “The Church is a source of hope for many children in the world.”
“Following a five-day ecumenical conversation on child rights at Busan in November 2015, the objective is to present principles on promoting child rights and to encourage WCC member churches to implement these. The principles will be accompanied by tools and good practices,” Seidel added.
Prof. Dr Isabel Phiri, associate general secretary of the WCC, said the WCC foresees a global conference about the SDGs with its member churches and partners in April 2016, which will be another opportunity to get churches to prioritize on the SDGs related to children's rights.
“Churches are deeply involved. We must see what we can draw from the scriptures in ways of working with children,” Phiri said.
WCC and UNICEF sign global partnership to promote children’s rights (WCC press release of 18 September 2015)
Nigerian churches in ecumenical and multi-faith effort to fight violence against children (WCC press release of 12 October 2015)
