Salaam dear young friends. Welcome to our weekly chat. The weather in Tehran is frosty with snow covering the mountains. Glory to God and gratitude for His blessings that never cease to shower on His creatures in various forms, despite the fact that ingrates, sinners, and atheists continue to pollute the earth!  
     So how is everything going on with you in this cold weather? Please be careful not to catch cold.
     Well friends, is there any special thing for today? Yes, you have guessed it correctly.
     Today is the World Children's Day. So, congratulations to all of you as not only today, but the future belongs to you.
     As you all know, today is the 30th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Children’s Rights, the UN General Assembly passed the Convention on Rights of the Child, signed by 140 countries, and this day was thus designated as Day of Children’s Rights. Presently 194 countries have officially ratified the Universal Declaration of Children’s Rights, except for a handful of countries, including the US, which although a signatory has refused to ratify it.
     Surely, you and your friends are fortunate to be residing in the Islamic Republic of Iran, which is indeed a welfare society.
     But do you know how youngsters of your age, and even much smaller than you fare in many places around the world?
     The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), released a report in which the year 2014 was marked as the most painful and violent year for children all over the world. It said millions of children each year experience various types of violence, including torture and killing.
     It is really shocking. Children are supposed to be flowers of the society, and no human in his/her right mind would think of harming or torturing children, let alone killing them.
     So who would commit such atrocities against these hopes of the future?
     The answer is obvious: Beasts in human forms. Those who indulge in such brutal behaviour against children cannot be called human beings, even if they resembled humans in appearance.
     Imagine, to what low levels humanity has sunk! In 2017, the World Health Organization (WHO) estimated that up to 1 billion minors between the ages of 2 and 17 years of age have endured violence either physical or emotional.
     Violence against children is not confined to the so-called Third World, but is rampant in the industrially advanced West.
     For instance, the US National Center for Missing and Exploited Children states that one out of every five girls and one out of every 10 boys in the US are sexually exploited before they reach 18 years of age!
     Then there is the wide spread trafficking of children into Europe for forced labour, for abuse of their rights, for pleasures of the flesh, and for stealing of their tender organs.
     This means that the modern world have drifted away from spiritual values.
     No positive change will occur, unless people return to God and humanitarian values. It is only the teachings of Islam and the excellent example set by Prophet Muhammad (SAWA) and his Infallible Ahl al-Bayt that will salvage humanity.
     We pray to God to help us resist the temptations of the devil, and revert to the path of virtue and righteousness – for the sake of children, the hope of the future.