Root and Branch

The Children’s March and Vigil at the United Nations is scheduled for Tuesday, September 18th 2001 in New York City. I have been asked to speak. It is doubtful this March for the Rights of Children will take place. If it does go forward, this is what I feel must be said:

“We cannot gather here tonight in defense of the world’s children without acknowledging the terror visited on this City just seven days ago. Evil people driven by a belief system that belongs in the Dark Ages hurtled to their destruction with innocent people strapped to their back…their targets containing still more innocent people engaged in the world’s commerce and protection.

We are now hearing that the freedom-loving people of the world must give up some of their precious freedoms for the illusion of safety. Nothing could be further from the truth.

It is not our freedoms that must be sacrificed, but the freedom of the forces of Evil to continue in their wickedness.

It is not our freedom of speech that has to go, but the freedom to preach hatred from a pulpit that cloaks evil in righteousness.

It is not we who must give up our freedom of travel. Instead we should be disallowing the unrestricted mobility of known terrorists. Similarly, as advocates for the rights of working children, we must insist not on import restrictions of goods made by children, but eliminate their very manufacture right at the point of origin.

It is time to quarantine products and ideas that cause harm to children. It is time to put a tag on the dirty money that is circulating around this world.

All the conveniences of the modern world must be withheld from those who would use children to amass wealth or political power, whether that person is a captain of industry or an itinerant preacher in the savannahs of Africa. Nations that harbor hatred and provide shelter and protection to these individuals and organizations must, as in the days of Native Americans, be totally shunned. We must see to it that Evil casts no shadow, not by giving up our freedoms but by restricting theirs.

Those who would tell children that it is glorious to kill others and die for their cause should be consigned to eternal silence and buried with the ruins of the dark ages they represent.

Something fundamental to the continuance of humankind has been lost, and that is the welfare of the next generation. The children who are alive today exist in a world that has forgotten the importance of allowing children to be children.

250 million children are at work around the world…working to create vast wealth for a few individuals and corporations that seem to believe they will escape the consequences of this wanton disregard for their own descendants. This is unprecedented in world history.

Children are being enslaved, economically, politically, religiously, and emotionally all around the planet. To whom do kids turn when the adults in their world have forsaken them?

Religious leaders have institutionalized teaching hatred to children, even as their supporters chain these same children to manufacturing tables.

Tribal leaders with Oxford educations allow the mutilation of female children as a means of perpetuating social systems whose results continue to breed ignorance, poverty and death.

Within the borders of the richest country the world has ever seen nearly a million children, children who are not in school, not being paid, and who are not adequately protected by the Laws of the country they help to feed, are harvesting the very food sitting on America’s dinner tables.

It is the freedom of children to be children that is under assault. Children are not born to be recruits for someone’s idea of an Army of God. They do not naturally hate.

It is time for us to exercise our freedom to cordon off and separate from our world the Forces of Darkness.

There is slavery in the world. We know it. We know that children are involved. The citizens of the world must rise up and say, “End slavery. End it now” and accept no excuses. We are free to demand this, and free to destroy those who will not heed our demand.

There is no excuse to have children serving in an army. There can be no justification for children serving as sexual objects. 250 million Heads of Households must replace the 250 million children in the work place, not because children shouldn’t work, but because able-bodied adults who are more resistant to exploitation, must and should be the first in line when it comes to labor.

It is time for a global quarantine. The majesty of freedom is that we can choose one path over another. For me, I choose the future, and the welfare of the children who will live in that future.

For these beliefs I am prepared to fight and die, as surely as those brave men and women of Flight 93 who, made aware of the unthinkable, monstrous destination of previous hijacked flights, sacrificed themselves for our sake’s.

Americans are uniquely qualified to fight this fight because our nation was founded on the certain knowledge that politics and religion do not mix. Through an often-painful history we have also learned that tolerance and forgiveness can only be pushed so far, and then no more.

To this end I will echo the words of one of America’s founders. I pledge my life and sacred honor in the fight to end the war against children.

That line has been crossed. September 11th, 2001 will mark the end of Evil’s freedom. It will be torn out of this world, root and branch.

So help us, God."

Paul Petersen,
United Nations Delegate, World Safety Organization
Founder & President, A Minor Consideration
Member, Child Labor Coalition