What does justice mean for vulnerable children?

Today, February 20, 2024, is World Day of Social Justice.  Formerly called "Social Justice Equality Day," it's an internationally recognized day to promote social justice efforts that tackle issues such as poverty, exclusion, gender inequality, unemployment, human rights, childhood poverty and social protections.  

Many people in the world suffer because of issues of social justice, but it's difficult to think of a group of people more powerless than children living without the love and protection of safe and caring families, and the networks of support that surround them, such as extended family, neighbors, communities, churches and access to social services.  Orphaned children and those otherwise living outside of the care of family have no power, no voice, and no agency over their own lives.  Even in institutional settings, children can suffer an appalling lack of access to their own rights.  The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child clearly identifies some of these rights: the right to "...remain in or return to the care of his/her parents, or when appropriate, other close families members," the right to "...freedom of thought, conscience and religion,"  the right to "...express his/her own views freely in all matters affecting them, and the right to protection... from all forms of physical and mental violence, injury or abuse, neglect or negligent treatment, maltreatment or exploitation."

Micah 7:8 teaches us that what God requires of us is "to act justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God."  Note that it doesn't say that this is what God wants from us.  No - it's not a suggestion, or even a recommendation - it's a requirement.  In a world full of division and warfare and violence, it's difficult to figure out how to act justly, love mercy and walk humbly all at the same time, even just for ourselves.  But if we're also engaged in the work of child protection and ensuring social justice for children, what does that justice look like, for them?  If we're the champions of the least and the lost - how can we find justice for them?  

Mick Pease and Phillip Williams, co-authors of Children Belong in Families, have said "what children really need is someone just for them....they want to belong to someone, not to something."  In 2019, after the CRC had completed its transition to family-based care and reintegrated all of the children back into their families, I visited one family in their two-room mud house, and asked the older daughter how things were different for her at home with her dad, than in the orphanage.  She thought for several long minutes, and then she said, "when I wake up in the morning, he's here.  We make breakfast and pray together.  When I come home from school, he's here.  He asks me about my day.  He's here."  His daily presence in her life, mattered more to her than anything else.  

I think for a child, justice looks like love, care, protection, identity; the right and ability to know who you are and to whom you belong.