Violence
“In our society, too many children and young people are still exposed to violence since a young age, as the victims of personal attacks and as members of attacked or threatened families”. This is the report that the leaders of the Irish churches put in a joint message to coincide with the Universal Children’s Day. The core of their concern are the so-called “paramilitary attacks” in Northern Ireland, in which victims are often injured in their legs, a kind of attacks that has marked the thirty-year-long conflict in Northern Ireland and is still going on – it is actually escalating, according to Northern Irish police’s figures. The peace process wanted “children and young people to be protected from the violence that ruined the previous generations’ lives”, the message says. “We must ask ourselves if the violent conflict has bequeathed to us a powerlessness to challenge the culture that keeps this kind of violence going on”. There are, though, “many examples of brave leadership” that work to give young people “better opportunities”, a job that is endangered “by cuts on subsidies and financial uncertainty”. Hence the religious leaders’ call to “support the initiatives that give young people a chance to accomplish their full potential and challenge those who try to trap them into endless spirals of violence”.
