Worldwide: Pathways (un)locked – new update on children and youth

Pathways (un)locked: 2023 Children & Youth interim update, published by World Watch Research in September2023, shows how Christian children’s futures are particularly affected by their experience in education, which ripples out to their families and their experience of faith as well as their options for their future. Based on findings from analyzing religious persecution dynamics in 76 World Watch List 2023 countries where high, very high or extreme levels of persecution targeting Christians were recorded, Pathways (un)locked explores how the long-term trajectory of young peoples’ life choices (termed “pathways”) are influenced by hostility towards their faith.

Senior Specialist for Specific Religious Persecution, Rachel Morley, observes: “In the case study of the Tadesse twins in Ethiopia, we see how a whole family is facing opposition towards their faith and how this pressure can be particularly felt by Christian children at school. Something as seemingly simple as deliberately lowering a child’s grades can restrict their pathways later in life in a myriad of ways, affecting their family life, access to jobs and role in their church and community.”