Foreign Policy Blogs

Welcome to the Children's Blog

Something to Think About:

Whose responsibility is a child?  The parents’ or guardians’, the state's, the international community's, the church's?  Who protects the child who lives alone on the streets or the child who is forced into slavery?  Who watches the child who lives each day staring death in the eye, as he fights a war he knows less truths about than he has knowledge of how to use a Kalashnikov or a grenade?  

Sadly so many of the world's children have no one watching out for them.  There is no one to hold them when they are scared and no one to tend to them when they fall.  And all of us pay for the loss of a child.  The child who dies on the streets is not the only child we lose; we lose all children who live such inhumane and violent lives.  The loss of a child's innocence and a child's soul is often far worse then the death of a child.  The child who lives a life of petty street crime on his own often grows up to be something much worse, creating a cycle that is too often hard to break.

Again we must ask who takes responsibility for these lost children?  Who protects the child who has no family, no one to guard them?  Who saves the innocent children before they are lost to such atrocities?  Who helps the children who have been lost to regain their innocence?  The answer is simpleall of us!  Every person, every state, every community!  We cannot look just at the child who sits before us, but at the children who don'tthe children who deserve the right to be free!

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Author

Cassandra Clifford

Cassandra Clifford is the Founder and Executive Director of Bridge to Freedom Foundation, which works to enhance and improve the services and opportunities available to survivors of modern slavery. She holds an M.A., International Relations from Dublin City University in Ireland, as well as a B.A., Marketing and A.S., Fashion Merchandise/Marketing from Johnson & Wales University in Providence, Rhode Island.

Cassandra has previously worked in both the corporate and charity sector for various industries and causes, including; Child Trafficking, Learning Disabilities, Publishing, Marketing, Public Relations and Fashion. Currently Cassandra is conducting independent research on the use of rape as a weapon of war, as well as America’s Pimp Culture and its Impact on Modern Slavery. In addition to her many purists Cassandra is also working to develop a series of children’s books.

Cassandra currently resides in the Washington, D.C. metro area, where she also writes for the Examiner, as the DC Human Rights Examiner, and serves as an active leadership member of DC Stop Modern Slavery.


Areas of Focus:
Children's Rights; Human Rights; Conflict