United Nations

Children under the age of 18 make up one half of the world’s refugee population, a U.N. report said.

As the Central African Republic’s government and the 14 militia groups that control most of the country meet for peace talks, the country’s bishops called on the United Nations to lift the arms embargo imposed on the nation.

Providing children access to schools and basic education is essential but “for children to grow into flourishing adults, much more is needed,” the Vatican’s nuncio to the United Nations said Jan. 24.

Aborting a child with a prenatal diagnosis of Down syndrome is a gross violation of human rights and anti-discriminatory commitments, and can be considered genocide, according to speakers at a March 20 panel at the United Nations.

Mely Lenario spoke March 13 on “Preventing Human Trafficking Among Rural Women and Girls,” a panel co-sponsored by the Permanent Observer Mission of the Holy See to the United Nations.

During a U.N. Security Council open debate Nov. 21 on human trafficking in conflict situations, Archbishop Bernardito Auza said as wars and conflicts rage, “trafficking in persons for sexual exploitation, forced labor and similar crimes will continue to flourish.”

For more than 70 years, the popes and Catholic leaders around the globe have echoed the judgment that the nuclear bomb as “the most terrible weapon that the human mind has ever conceived.”

U.S. Vice President Mike Pence criticized the United Nations’ efforts to help persecuted Christians in the Middle East in a speech Oct. 25.