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Churches in Africa and disabled persons organizations are condemning the use of disabled children as beggars and slaves, amid media reports of cross-border smuggling of the children between Kenya and Tanzania.

A wave of change is blowing at the All Africa Conference of Churches, as the African ecumenical body implements a new five-year strategic plan. In an ambitious six pillar road map, the grouping of Protestant, Anglican, Orthodox, and indigenous churches has unveiled completely new areas of work, as it moves to inject new energy into older programmes. At the core of the strategy is effectiveness, efficiency and reliability for the ecumenical body, which is keen to deliver on its prophetic mission.

Because faith communities that work closely with the UN children’s agency are deeply involved with young people on the move, they can play a crucial role in applying the global compacts on safe migration and refugees.

Many ecumenical pioneers, including former WCC general secretary Philip Potter, were in a sense a product of the Sunday School movement. Ulrich Becker tells a story that seems to be in danger of being forgotten.

Joint commitment and action for children on the move were at the heart of discussions as representatives of religious communities and faith-based organizations gathered in Rome on 16-18 October.

Religious leaders from across the globe gather in Rome on 16-18 October, to address the situation of children on the move.

Speaking at a reception hosted by UNICEF on 22 January, World Council of Churches general secretary Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit offered an ecumenical vision on migration, inclusion and justice.

The World Council of Churches strongly condemns the car bomb attack on evacuees in Aleppo on 15th April, in which at about 100 people are believed killed, many of them children.

World Council of Churches (WCC) general secretary Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit has accepted an invitation from the Global Partnership to End Violence Against Children to serve on the organization’s board of directors.

Some people don’t exist – on paper, that is. Indeed, millions of people are not recognized as citizens by the law of any country.

Women and children figure prominently as refugees in mass movements of people in recent months and their rights will be at the forefront of a summer school organized in Greece by the Conference of European Churches.

The #SyriaCrisis has raged for five brutal years and another round of talks involving the world’s powerful nations and those involved in the conflict to push for peace could be starting to finally end the warring.

Following the WCC/UN High Level Conference on the Refugee Crisis in Europe, which took place at the Ecumenical Centre Geneva on 18-19 January, a statement has been issued entitled "Europe’s Response to the Refuge Crisis, From Origin to Transit, Reception and Refuge, A Call for Shared Responsibility and Coordinated Action”.

“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.

The WCC and UNICEF signed a partnership on 18 September pledging to work together to support children’s rights, with special initial focus on two major issues: violence against children and climate change.

Violence against children was one emerging issue discussed at the Christian Conference of Asia's assembly. “It is still a sad reality in large parts of the world, but momentum to end violence against children is growing within governments and communities, amongst parents and religious leaders. This is a good thing since it takes everyone to make a change”, says Lauren Rumble, UNICEF’s chief of child protection in Indonesia.

UNICEF, the United Nations Children’s Fund, this week invited 20 of its major partners from the private sector and civil society to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the adoption of the Convention on the Rights of the Child. The WCC general secretary represented faith based-organizations at a high-level breakfast in New York hosted by the UN agency.