Today I went to the annual lecture and agm of NCVYS.

The Keynote speaker was Al Aynsley Green, the new Children’s Commissioner for England. I was impressed by how he spoke, and by the challenge he presented to us.

He was basically asking the question ‘who cares that all this crap is happening to young people?’ and challenged us, as the voluntary sector, to speak out, challenge and stand up for the rights of young people. He drew attention to some horrible facts of inequality:

young people in poverty in the city have a life expectancy of 15 years less than that of their peers outside the city!
40 000 teens are on ant-depressants
only 1% of care leavers go on to higher education.
we still (after a decade of work) have the highest teenage pregnancy rate in Europe.
Sexually transmitted diseases are on the rapid increase.
Teen suicides are the highest they have ever been in the UK.

We looked at how the media is demonising young people: hoodie horrors, naming and shaming minors, be-littling good exam results. Young people can’t win!

Aynsley Green then went on to outline how no one stands up for young people, no one has been challenging the advertisers, the companies that put inappropriate slogans on t-shirts for girls who are only 5. He drew reference to one, with age 5/6 in the label, with the slogan ‘so may boys … so little time’. What is the point! Where is the justification.

I think we need to open our eyes. Our children are being sacrificed. We are sitting back and letting it happen. I’ve mentioned this before, but I believe this is the spirit of Molech all over again.

One of the marks of Aynsley Green’s job so far has been to go out and talk with young people and children. He outlined an incident at an immigration centre. He wanted to see how young people were treated so did the tour, following the route asylum seekers would follow. He shared how he arrived in reception and saw a 12 year old boy with shiny shoes, school uniform with tie, blazer and badge. He was tearful and looking bewildered.

Aynsley Green asked the boy why he was here. He replied that no one had told him. Next to him stood his tearful mum. He then outlined his morning. Mum had sent him to the shops at 730am to buy some milk. On his return he saw police cars and 2 police vans. He and his mum were put in the van and taken to the centre. He was not allowed to collect belongings. He was not allowed to say goodbye. He was not told what was happening.

I was angry! I was hurt by the sense of injustice! Are these the actions of a civilised country? Is this what we mean by freedom and civil rights? Is this the ‘respect’ that my government talks about? Is this what persecuted people flee their country to come to?

He gave a fourfold challenge today to the voluntary sector:

we need to expose
we need to challenge
we need to examine
we need to inform.

He asked ‘who will do this’ ‘who is speaking out against the victimisation of our young people’ ‘who is exposing the consumerist cut-throat advertising campaigns’.

My immediate response was – ‘we are’. By that I mean the church. I believe that the church has been speaking out on some of this for a while, and we have been ignored. Over 10 years ago there were articles in Youth work magazine warning of the dangers of alco-pops and promiscuous magazines aimed at teen girls. We were ignored – and now the government is seeing the result of that ignoring. These 13 and 14 years old girls and boys that we were concerned about, that we asked for protection for, are now 23 and 24 , involved in binge drinking regularly, sleeping around and contracting STD’s. We allowed their innocence to be sacrificed and look at the mess now!

The nation needs icons. The nation needs people to speak out, to stand up, to cause change. The nation needs the church to explain. The nation needs God.It’s been done before, and it was the church that did it. The time has come for us to make that stand again – we can’t say ‘I told you so’, we need to say ‘lets sort this!’

Today Aynsley Green outlined stuff but he had no explanations or remedies. He could not share any secrets that would turn these behaviours around. There was, there is, something missing. The missing element is a nation that looks to God for guidance. By that I don’t mean a nation of Christians; I have faith but it is not big enough to believe the whole nation will turn to Christ. The nation can, however, turn and follow Christ’s morals. They have forgotten how to – and we need to find ways of helping more than we have ever done before.

God forgive us and help us to change!