{"id":17247,"date":"2026-01-27T16:02:26","date_gmt":"2026-01-27T16:02:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/?p=17247"},"modified":"2026-01-27T16:02:26","modified_gmt":"2026-01-27T16:02:26","slug":"is-it-time-to-spare-gen-alpha-an-injustice-too-cruel-for-words","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/?p=17247","title":{"rendered":"Is it time to spare Gen Alpha an injustice too cruel for words?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n Nasiru started leprosy treatment but was not able to complete it. He is likely to develop irreversible disabilities that will affect him for the rest of his life.<\/span>\u00a0(Photo: The Leprosy Mission)<\/span><\/p>\n

It takes more than the roll-out of drugs to end Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTDs) like leprosy. It takes\u00a0 courage \u2014 courage to confront destructive myths and lies that shatter lives. It takes time and\u00a0 resources to reach some of the most marginalised communities on earth. It takes relentless\u00a0 compassion to welcome back those who were once cast out.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But before any of that, it takes a willingness to look directly at the suffering the Western world is trying not to see.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Because right now, the neglect surrounding leprosy is condemning Generation Alpha \u2014 the very\u00a0 generation our own children belong to \u2014 to avoidable disability, isolation and unimaginable cruelty.\u00a0<\/p>\n

We are currently working with two children whose stories should shake every one of us. A little boy in Nepal who was told he was cursed by a snake god, and a toddler in Nigeria whose ear was sliced off to atone for his mother allegedly being a witch.\u00a0<\/p>\n

What was their crime, you may ask? They had leprosy \u2014 a mildly infectious disease easily cured with a combination of antibiotics. A disease that becomes a lifelong sentence only when it is left untreated because the world chooses to look away.\u00a0<\/p>\n

If these children lived in the UK, there would be a public outcry. Headlines across national\u00a0 papers. Questions in Parliament and protesters lining the streets demanding action.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But because their suffering happens in remote communities across Asia and Africa \u2014 children whose names we don\u2019t know and whose pain we don\u2019t see \u2014 it somehow becomes easy to ignore.<\/p>\n

We in the West celebrate how \u2018small\u2019 the world has become. We fly long-haul for summer\u00a0 holidays. We work across continents as if borders and time zones barely exist. Distance, we say, is no longer an obstacle. We can be citizens of the world!\u00a0<\/p>\n

And yet when it comes to truths that make us uncomfortable \u2014 like a Biblical, stigmatised\u00a0 disease destroying children\u2019s lives \u2014 distance becomes a convenient excuse. An easy\u00a0 opportunity to look away. Well, at least it\u2019s not on my doorstep so I can avoid thinking about it.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Governments do the same. After Elon Musk boasted of feeding US Aid \u201cto the woodchipper\u201d,\u00a0 other wealthy nations, including the UK, followed suit by cutting their overseas aid. As a direct result, Generation Alpha has become more vulnerable to leprosy than at any point in recent history. That should shame us.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Leprosy is not malaria \u2014 a disease many of us can relate to because we have taken tablets\u00a0 before flying somewhere quite lovely. Nor is it polio, which, despite immense challenges,\u00a0 received sustained global backing.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Leprosy once had that support. When the first effective cure was discovered in the late\u00a0 twentieth century, the world surged forward with determination. But momentum faded too\u00a0 quickly. And for the past decade, new cases have stagnated at around 200,000 each year,\u00a0 according to the World Health Organization. Yet research supports what we already know only too well. For every diagnosed case, 19 remain hidden.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Hidden children and hidden suffering. Hidden because governments don\u2019t prioritise it and\u00a0 overstretched health systems simply can\u2019t keep up.\u00a0<\/p>\n

With more conflicts now than at any time since World War II, and climate change hitting the poorest communities the hardest, we are spiralling backwards. The UN\u2019s goal of ending the epidemic of NTDs by 2030 is not only painfully out of reach but not even in sight.\u00a0<\/p>\n

We know this not only from reports but from what our teams are finding every day. We are\u00a0 uncovering pockets where the number of children with leprosy is shockingly high. And because the bacterium grows so slowly, visible symptoms in a young child mean the disease is circulating fiercely through their community.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The physical impact on young bodies is brutal \u2014 nerve damage, disability and searing pain. But the emotional impact is even more devastating. Children branded as cursed are driven out of school, cut off from friendships and grow up believing they are unworthy of love. Families are cast out from their communities, or their children are imprisoned within four walls for fear of the outside world discovering their \u2018terrible\u2019 secret.\u00a0<\/p>\n

If this were happening on our doorstep, we would consider it a monstrous injustice. Because it is. We would never tolerate such cruelty for British children. So why do we tolerate it for children in Nepal, Nigeria, India, Mozambique or Bangladesh?\u00a0<\/p>\n

Wherever a child is suffering, we all have a global responsibility. Our compassion should\u00a0 transcend postcodes, passports and borders. So it is time to wake up and finish what we started with the rollout of Multidrug therapy, the cure for leprosy, in the 80s and 90s. And this time not with the soul-crushing belief that if we don\u2019t look, we won\u2019t find and it will somehow not exist. But with our whole hearts, knowing that we can be part of a global force that spares Generation Alpha from leprosy \u2014 and every generation that follows.<\/p>\n

Peter Waddup is Chief Executive of The Leprosy Mission.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Nasiru started leprosy treatment but was not able to complete it. He is likely to develop irreversible disabilities that will affect him for the rest of his life.\u00a0(Photo: The Leprosy Mission) It takes more than the roll-out of drugs to end Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTDs) like leprosy. It takes\u00a0 courage \u2014 courage to confront destructive<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":17248,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[4378,5449,298,5448,2557,967,267],"class_list":["post-17247","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-christian-living","tag-alpha","tag-cruel","tag-gen","tag-injustice","tag-spare","tag-time","tag-words"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17247","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17247"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17247\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/17248"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17247"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17247"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17247"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}