Baroness Caroline Cox, Deputy Speaker of the English House of Lords and founder of Christian Solidarity Worldwide, discussed oppression in the developing world and the need to address this problem in a lecture on Thursday.
Entitled "Giving a Voice to the Voiceless," her talk focused on areas in Africa, Armenia and Burma where she said groups of people live in constant oppression.
Cox said that there are roughly 250 million persecuted people across the globe who Christians have a responsibility to assist. In order to help achieve this goal she created the Humanitarian Aid Relief Trust, a Christian organization that works to provide aid to people whose governments refuse to allow foreign help to cross their borders.
"I invite you to come traveling with me and meet some of these forgotten peoples in forgotten lands, some people suffering the most acute forms of oppression," Cox said. "I hope you will return from the travels humbled and inspired by the courage and resilience of so many of the people in so many of the darkest parts of the world."
Cox addressed the current crisis in Darfur, Sudan, but said that it is merely one part of the Sudan catastrophe. Additionally, organizations are working to help the mistreated people there, even though their convoys are often attacked.
"The more there [are] attacks on humanitarian aid the more the relief is withdrawn and the worse the situation becomes," Cox said.
Cox then showed a picture of a mother whose child was dying of starvation because she refused to denounce her faith in order to receive food from the Sudanese government. Citizens there also experience frequent military offenses and the government often withholds aid from other countries.
"We must do something to prevent...these governments [from stopping] access by aid organizations to reach their victims. It's something we need to address," Cox said.
The people of Northern Uganda are also cut off from relief efforts, she said. The Lord's Resistance Army, an oppressive rebel group, abducts children to use as soldiers and sex slaves. Cox described three circles of oppression: an outer circle, with 500,000 people killed and 25,000 children abducted; a middle circle, with 1 million citizens forced into concentration camps; and an inner circle, where thousands of children became "victims of terror."
"We met several young people who had escaped from the Lord's Resistance Army; their stories are virtually indescribable," Cox said. "They have been trained to be soldiers, given live ammunition. The children were divided into two groups and forced to shoot each other alive."
Cox told the story of a boy named Dennis who was abducted and then forced to rape a woman in public and kill numerous civilians.
"I was forced to kill, I killed so many people, I lost count. I became wild. I became worse than they were. If I met my mother and father I would have killed them," Cox said Dennis told her.
Cox also described a similar situation in Burma, where she said the State Peace and Development Council subjects its citizens to bombings, shootings and burnings in places villages and even children's primary schools.
"Pray for Burma because the bombs are still falling," Cox said.
Cox ended her lecture by telling Americans how they can help the situation. She emphasized the importance of becoming informed as well as getting involved in organizations such as HART.
"Join and be aware, and there is no shortage of things that you can do once you know," she said.
