On November 20, L’Osservatore Romano devoted its most prominent front-page coverage to “childhood denied by wars, poverty and exploitation.” Citing UNICEF statistics on malnutrition (149 million children under five) and child labor (160 million), the newspaper commented, “Meanwhile, walls and barriers annihilate the rights and hopes of the little ones. In 2020, there were more than 35 million migrant or refugee minors outside their own country.”

That same day, Pope Francis tweeted, “The way we relate to children, the extent to which we respect their innate human dignity and fundamental rights, expresses what kind of adults we are and want to be, and what kind of society we want to build. #WorldChildrensDay”

On the previous day, the Pope also denounced exploitative child labor (full text).