“We must all unite, no matter what social, economic or cultural background, to end violence against children. The consequences will be grave and damaging if we fall short of our responsibility.”
- Sarah Jones, UNICEF spokesperson on violence against children
Winning Kids is committed to creating winning environments for children Canada. We realize, however, that children throughout the world, especially in developing countries, are subject to many forms of abuse and exploitation from which most children in Canada are safe. For example, almost 250 million children, mostly in Asia, Latin America and Africa, are child labourers. Sometimes, they work in hazardous and dangerous environments such as mines, construction sites, garbage dumps and factories. Some children work on commercial plantations, where they are exposed to noxious chemicals they are less able than adults to withstand. Children are bought and sold, trafficked into commercial sexual exploitation, traded into debt bondage, kidnapped as slaves. In areas of conflict, children are often used as soldiers, forced to kill people and grow up in circumstances of hate and instability. In the last decade, a child died in an armed conflict every three minutes. In today’s world, it seems that there is no way end to the ways in which people exploit children.
Winning Kids wishes to engage the community around issues of abuse and exploitation. We are thus extending our mandate beyond helping Canadian children by committing a portion of our proceeds to organizations and projects that are working in the Developing World to end child exploitation. In the future, Winning Kids will establish a foundation, through which others may also contribute to this cause. We have already begun working out our mandate to support organizations working with exploited children by supporting anti-sex trafficking programs in Cambodia, through the Ratanak Foundation. These programs work with communities throughout Cambodia to prevent sex trafficking of young girls into the sex industry, and also provide aftercare for girls who are rescued from brothels. As Winning Kids is involved in the prevention of child abuse, we will seek to support programs that have prevention components as well.
For more information on these issues, please contact Winning Kids to receive our new report “The Exploitation of Children in the Developing World: A Brief Overview.” This report was prepared by Winning Kids, in order to better understand the issue of child exploitation in the developing world so as to provide the rationale for allocating a portion of Winning Kids’ profits to organizations working in this area. We can help you create awareness in your churches about child exploitation and about what you can do to help. Children, regardless of where they are from, are our future; therefore, we must create winning environments for all children!
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