Pope says concrete help is needed for young migrants
Benedict XVI’s message for the January 13th World Day for Migrants is dedicated to young people often pushed to leaving their homes by globalisation or political difficulties. They must receive a welcome which includes educational programmes and support for families.
Vatican City (AsiaNews) – Young people forced to leave their homes because of globalisation or because of political difficulties, particularly those who live in refugee centres –who are born and spend their entire childhood there – often end up becoming the victims of violence and economic and sexual exploitation. Young people who leave their home countries, often the most intellectually gifted need to be welcomed with initiatives that focus on formation and facilitate better integration. These are the exigencies which Benedict XVI highlights in his message for World Day for Migrants, January 13th, published today and entitled “Young migrants”.
“The vast globalization process underway around the world – writes the Pope - brings a need for mobility, which also induces many young people to emigrate and live far from their families and their countries. The result is that many times the young people endowed with the best intellectual resources leave their countries of origin, while in the countries that receive the migrants, laws are in force that
make their actual insertion difficult. In fact, the phenomenon of emigration is becoming ever
more widespread and includes a growing number of people from every social condition”.
Among young migrants “there are also girls who fall victim more easily to exploitation, moral forms of blackmail, and even abuses of all kinds. What can we say, then, about the adolescents, the unaccompanied minors that make up a category at risk among those who ask for asylum? These boys and girls often end up on the street abandoned to themselves and prey to unscrupulous exploiters who often transform them into the object of physical, moral and sexual violence”. “looking more closely at the sector of forced migrants, refugees and the victims of human trafficking, we unhappily find many children and adolescents too. On this subject it is impossible to remain silent before the distressing images of the great refugee camps present in different parts of the world. How can we not think that these little beings have come into the world with the same legitimate expectations of happiness as the others? And, at the same time, how can we not remember that childhood and adolescence are fundamentally important stages for the development of a man and a woman that require stability, serenity and security? These children and adolescents have only had as their life experience the permanent, compulsory “camps” where they are segregated, far from inhabited towns, with no possibility normally to attend school. How can they look to the future with confidence? While it is true that much is being done for them, even greater commitment is still needed to help them by creating suitable hospitality and formative structures”.
In order to respond to the needs and expectations of these young migrants the Pope maintains that supporting the family and schooling is essential, while keeping present the difficulties young people encounter in both of these environs. In the family because “the traditional roles that existed in the countries of origin have broken down, and a clash is often seen between parents still tied to their culture and children quickly acculturated in the new social contexts”, in schools because of “the difficulty which the young people find in getting inserted into the educational course of study in force in the country where they are hosted. Therefore, the scholastic system itself should take their conditions into consideration and provide specific formative paths of integration for the immigrant boys and
girls that are suited to their needs. The commitment will also be important to create a climate
of mutual respect and dialogue among all the students in the classrooms based on the universal
principles and values that are common to all cultures”.
For young Christians in particular, “this study and formation experience can be a useful
area for the maturation of their faith, a stimulus to be open to the universalism that is a
constitutive element of the Catholic Church”.
In conclusion addressing the “dear young migrants”, Benedict XVI urges them to prepare themselves to “prepare yourselves to build together your young peers a more just and fraternal society by fulfilling your duties scrupulously and seriously towards your families and the State. Be respectful of the laws and never let yourselves be carried away by hatred and violence. Try instead to be protagonists as of now of a world where understanding and solidarity, justice and peace will reign. To you, in particular, young believers, I ask you to profit from your period of studies to grow in knowledge and love of Christ. Jesus wants you to be his true friends, and for this it is necessary for you to cultivate a close relationship with Him constantly in prayer and docile listening to his Word. He wants you to be his witnesses, and for this it is necessary for you to be committed to living the Gospel courageously and expressing it in concrete acts of love of God and generous service to your brothers and sisters. The Church needs you too and is counting on your contribution”.
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