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| Pastor Peter Sewakiryanga with young, rescued children. |
Child sacrifice is a very real horror facing unprotected
children in an age of theoretical children’s rights. Being a part of ending it is the ultimate child advocacy in a world
desperately in need of family restoration.
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| Regent Law Professor Ernie Walton and Pastor Peter |
Pastor Peter Sewakiryanga lives a life of courage to rescue
children from child sacrifice in Uganda. He addressed Regent Law Chapel earlier
this month, illustrating his work as a calling from God to console parents who
have lost children to witch-doctor abductions and sacrifice.
Regent Law students have opportunities to travel to Uganda
through the Center for Global Justice summer internships to work strategically with advocates like Pastor
Peter to save children from the horrors of child sacrifice. The litigation and public policy efforts of
former Regent Law students is apparent in a recent article entitled,“Confronting Child Sacrifice in Uganda: A Multi-Layered View,” co-written by Brian Dennison,
Frieda Faith Letacie and Heather Pate (Regent Law 2014), presented at the 3rd
Annual Regional Children Rights Conference, Nakuru, Kenya, on the 18th
of November in 2013 (forthcoming Kabarak University 2014).
International law and the UN Handbook explicitly prohibit
child sacrifice, but those efforts are not curbing the problem as one might
expect. Rather, it’s brave individuals
like Pastor Peter who are making a difference in saving children.
I'm deeply unsurprised that international law against child sacrifice isn't changing behavior within communities. How could it, in the absence of either enforcement mechanisms or social sea change?
ReplyDeleteUnless we're willing to embrace an unprecedented level of international interference in sovereign nations, people like Pastor Peter and the folks working to promote more protection within the legal systems and societies of the countries involved are the only way to help these kids.