“The most profitable investment that humanity can make is the protection of children,” said Pope Francis in a message, signed by the Cardinal Secretary of State Pietro Parolin, addressed to the participants in the opening session of FAO’s Global Solution Forum on the elimination of child labor in agriculture.
The Cardinal pointed out that the exploitation of children is “an ever more worrying phenomenon, given the recent estimates of international organisms.” In fact, “when it manifests itself as exploitation, child labor becomes a scourge that cruelly wounds a worthy existence and the harmonious development of the littlest ones, limiting considerably their future opportunities, as it reduces and hurts their life to satisfy the productive and lucrative needs of adults,” he continued.
In this connection, Cardinal Parolin expressed the hope to FAO’s Director-General, that from this meeting a loud cry may arise that appeals to the competent international and national entities to defend the serenity and happiness of children. The most profitable investment that humanity can make is the protection of children!”
So, he reminded, “to protect children is to respect the time of their growth, letting these fragile buds enjoy the adequate conditions for their opening and flowering. Moreover, to protect children means to take incisive measures to help the families of small farmers, so that they won’t be obliged to send their children to the fields to increase their income that, being so low, does not enable them to maintain their homes worthily. Finally, to protect children means to act in such a way that horizons are cleared for them, which configure them as free, honest and solidary citizens.”
The Cardinal also highlighted the importance of an accurate and effective legal system, of both international as well as national reach,” which “defends and protects boys and girls from that noxious technocratic mentality, which has taken hold of the present.” To achieve this, “individuals and associations must multiply so that the desire for excessive profit, which condemns children and young people to the brutal yoke of labor exploitation, give way to the logic of care.” What is needed is “an endeavor of denunciation, of education, of sensitization, of conviction so that those that have no scruples in enslaving children with unbearable burdens get to see farther and more profoundly, overcoming egoism and that anxiety to consume compulsively, which ends by devouring the planet, forgetting that its resources must be preserved for future generations.”
Here is the Holy Father’s Message, signed by the Cardinal Secretary of State, Pietro Parolin, published by the Holy See Press Office.
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To His Excellency Qu Dongyu
Director-General of FAO
Excellency:
At the request and in the name of the Holy Father, I want to thank FAO for having promoted, in collaboration with ILO, this high-level global meeting, which focuses our attention on an increasingly worrying phenomenon, given the recent estimates of international organisms.
In fact, even more so when it is manifested as exploitation, child labor becomes a scourge that wounds cruelly the worthy existence and harmonious development of the littlest ones, limiting considerably their future opportunities, given that it reduces and hurts their life to satisfy the productive and lucrative needs of adults.
The negative connotations of this tragedy have been made acute by the pandemic, which has driven an increasing number of minors to leave school to fall, lamentably, into the claws of this form of slavery. For many of these little brothers of ours, not to go to school means not only to lose opportunities that will prepare them to face the challenges of adult age but also to be sick, that is, to see themselves deprived of the right to health, given the deplorable conditions in which they must carry out the tasks that vilely are exacted of them.
If we pause on the agricultural sector, the emergency is even more alarming: thousands of boys and girls see themselves hard-pressed to work tirelessly, in exhausting, precarious, and degrading conditions, enduring mistreatments, abuses, and discrimination. But the situation reaches the apex of desolation when it is the parents themselves who see themselves obliged to send their children to work, because, without their active contribution, they are unable to maintain the family.
Mister Director-General, may a loud cry arise from this meeting, which appeals to the competent international and national entities, to defend the serenity and happiness of children. The most profitable investment that humanity can make is the protection of children! To protect children is to respect the time of their growth, letting these fragile buds enjoy adequate conditions for their opening and flowering. Moreover, to protect children means to take incisive measures to help the families of small farmers, so that they are not obliged to send their children to the fields to increase their income that, being so low, does not enable them to maintain their homes worthily. Finally, to protect children means to act in such a way that horizons are cleared for them, which will configure them as free, honest and solidary citizens.
How important it would be that an accurate and effective legal system, of both an international as well as a national reach, defend and protect boys and girls from that noxious technocratic mentality that has taken hold of the present. To achieve this, individuals and associations at all levels must multiply that make an effort so that the desire for excessive profit, which condemns children and young people to the brutal yoke of labor exploitation, gives way to the logic of care. In this connection, an endeavor is necessary of denunciation, of education, of sensitization, of conviction so that those that have no scruples in enslaving children with unbearable burdens get to see farther and more profoundly, overcoming egoism and that anxiety to consume compulsively, which ends by devouring the planet, forgetting that its resources must be preserved for future generations.
Excellency, if we aspire for our society to be able to enjoy that dignity that ennobles, if we want law to triumph over arbitrariness, we must ensure for our children and young people a present without labor exploitation. And this will only be possible if we involve ourselves in a joint and peremptory way in protecting and cultivating their dreams, in which they play, train, and learn. Then the way will open to a luminous future for the human family. I have no doubt that today’s event and the current International Year for the Eradication of Child Labour will contribute to it.
On renewing the will of the Holy See and the commitment of the Catholic Church and its institutions so that the International Community will not fail to combat in a firm, the joint and decisive way the scourge of minors’ labor exploitation, I invoke upon you, Mister Director-General, and upon all those that make an effort to free children and young people from all adversity, the blessing of God Almighty.
Vatican, November 2, 2021
Pietro Cardinal Parolin
Secretary of State
© Libreria Editrice Vatican
Translation by Virginia M. Forrester
