Tuesday, October 7, 2008

A Voice for the Voiceless

I found this on the website for the 30 days of prayer I'm doing. On the previous post I made a comment about being a voice to the voiceless... the question arises...

Who are the voiceless?
All around the world there are people living quietly,
Quietly ignored, quietly but firmly isolated.
All around the world there are people living on the outskirts of life - people living in the margins…
Society has margins, full of margin lives the marginalised.
Margins are places occupied by people who for the most part go unnoticed,
Whose stories remain untold,
Whose existences are hidden
Those who seldom come to the centre stage.
The margins are crowded with people whose brokenness gnaws away at their hearts.
These are the voiceless - they are women,
Children, refugees, little girls, many young people, old people,
People of all sorts of races speaking all sorts of languages.
They are voiceless not because they have no voice
but because they are disempowered and therefore can not make their voice heard,
Their voices are drowned out as they cry out in pain,
They are silenced, alone, They live quietly, weep quietly, die quietly
Today's focus for prayer: Child Prostitution
Definition: It is the sexual exploitation of a child for renumeration in cash or kind, usually but not always organized by an intermediary (parent, family member, procurer, or teacher)
Facts:
~10 million children worldwide are engaged in some facet of the sex industry. Each year at least one million children, mostly girls, become prostitutes.
~In Thailand, 10-12 year old girls service men in the sex industry. They typically have sex with men 10-15 times daily and sometimes as many as 20-30.
~In South Africa, there are 40,000 child prostitutes
~Children are more susceptible to HIV and other STDs
Tough stuff to hear I know but remember "without knowledge people perish"
The Truth of the Word comes back at this and says:
"Because of the oppression of the weak and growning of the needy, GOD WILL NOW ARISE!" Ps. 12:5
Prayer focus: That God will arise and defend the little ones and that God would raise up rulers to end this savage exploitation.

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