The Devil is ever fearful of who might immerge from the next generation—perhaps another Moses or Billy Graham. One of the main strategies the devil is using to stop the Lord’s army from destroying his kingdom of darkness; is to stunt the growth of God’s army. He is doing this by killing and hindering the development of God’s chosen people, and has placed children in the bull’s eye of his evil target. Let’s take a look at how the devil tries to attack children:

Street Children

According to the UN there are 200 million children who live or work on the streets. By the year 2020, the number of street children worldwide will reach 800 million.

What are street children? The UNICEF defines street children in three different ways:

1. Children who have to work on the street because their families need the money to survive.
2. Children from poor families who sleep on the streets.
3. Children that are abandoned or orphans, whose parents have died because of illness or war.

Children at war

There are over 300,000 children soldiers, some as young as eight years old. More than two million children are estimated to have died as a direct result of armed conflict over the last decade. Over six million have been seriously injured or permanently disabled.
What do children lose in war?

• Families
• Homes
• Friends
• Childhood
• Physical safety
• Moral development
• Their innocence
• Beliefs
• Schooling
• Identity
• Self-worth
• Trust

Aids

Belize has been reported to have the highest rate of population infected by the AIDS virus in Central America—third highest in the Caribbean (Ref. Belizeans Network and National AIDS Commission, Belize). 4.8 Percent of the total population is infected with the virus, not to mention the children who are being neglected and eventually orphaned due to the fatal disease.

• Since 2006, over 25 million children have been orphaned by aids. Ref. Viva Network, Celebrating the World’s Children)
• Between 2001-2003, 15 million children lost at least one parent to aids—this number has nearly quadrupled.
• About one third of babies born with HIV- infected mothers acquire the infection, and of these infected, about 80% will die by the age of five (Ref. IBID)

Abortion

» Every day 126,000 babies are aborted
» Every month 4 million are aborted
» Every year 46 million are aborted

Children of the world

» The world’s population is estimated to be 6.6 billion, 2.2 billion are under the age of fifteen. Experts estimated that one billion children will be born in the next 10 years; over 90% of them will live under very poor circumstances. (UN.)
» Out of 2.2 billion children in the world today 1.9 billion live in developing countries, out of that amount 1 billion of these live in poverty and are deprived of at least one of six amenities that the UNICEF regard as basic rights.

• shelter
• water
• sanitation
• schooling
• food
• health care

» 640 million children do not have adequate shelter.