CHURCH SPEAKS ON CHILD ABUSE

Captain of The Salvation Army at Lilongwe corps took to the podium to denounce the use of children as tools of witchcraft and abuse during the enrollment of twelve children as junior soldiers of the church.

Salvation Army in its military style has Christians who they call soldiers and are graded right from birth. During the early years they are called junior soldiers and when they attend classes, they are enrolled as senior soldiers.

During the service, Captain Namathanga advised parents not to keep their children at home but train them in a Christian way to protect them from people who don’t wish them well, he descried the tendency of using children for witchcraft as barbaric and inhuman and called on the government.

He said many atrocities being committed today are due to the negligence of parents and lack of proper law enforcement due to the fact that no evidence is raised in cases of witchcraft.

He also denounced the tendency of employing young children for labour in homes and in farms saying this is killing the childrens future.

I urge you parents to desist from exposing your children to worldly affairs that will put them at risk of being exploted and killed emotionally and psychologically”. These children will make the church of tomorrow and the country of tomorrow, stop being selfish!”

The officer then proceeded to enroll the children as junior soldiers of the corps in a fashionable and colourfull event that took place at Lilongwe corps. Lilongwe corps is one of the biggest church centres of the salvation army in Malawi and has about 100 enrolled senior soldiers and about fifty junior soldiers.

The Salvation Army is running a child Trafficking project in Mchinji bordering Zambia to protect children from being exported for labour to neighbouring countries.