'No child soldiers!'
Presbyterian Red Hand Campaign
Make Red Hands to say that children are children, not soldiers.
UNICEF estimates that as many as 300,000 children under age 18 are engaged in armed conflicts in various places around the world. This all takes place despite international laws which prohibit the use of children as soldiers. As followers of Jesus who welcomed children, Presbyterians have joined people around the world in an effort to change this situation: the Red Hand Campaign. The message of the Red Hand Campaign is clear. Red hand prints proclaim the message to the world—children should NOT be used as soldiers! Over 300,000 red hands have already been delivered to world leaders. The Red Hand Campaign calls for universal ratification and enforcement of the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the involvement of children in armed conflict. The goal is for every country in the world to ratify the optional protocol by 2012, the tenth anniversary of treaty.
Follow Presbyterian efforts to end the use of child soldiers. Like the Presbyterians Say No Child Soldiers Facebook page. Learn more about Presbyterian efforts to address human trafficking. Send an email to world leaders asking their countries to ratify the Optional Protocol (made possible by Human Rights Watch).
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Comments
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Hi Robert, This is an ongoing campaign. We collect Red Hands here in the Office of Child Advocacy and send them on to the Presbyterian Ministry at the U.N, where our colleagues then deliver them to the ministries of countries that have not yet signed on to the Optional Protocol on the Involvement of Children in Armed Conflict. Since we started, some of these countries have signed on, so perhaps our actions are having some efect!
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Is this an on-going campaign or a once a year effort ? Robert Graham Advance Justice Mission contact Community Presbyterian Church Mount Prospect, Illinois
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Send Red Hands to the Office of Child Advocacy, 100 Witherspoon Street, Room 3224, Louisville, KY 40202-1396
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To what address do we send our red hands? We made them in Sunday School after hearing about this effort during church. Thanks!
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Learned about this earlier today at a PW meeting. Passing the info along to our Confirmation head. Thanks for raising awareness.