The ongoing debate between Youth With A Mission workers and government officials in Brazil over the Amazonian tribal practice of infanticide is making headlines in the United States this week. USA Today on Tuesday published a story by ABC News reporter Dan Harris that investigates the years-long relationship between YWAM workers and the Suruwaha tribe. The ABC Nightline program aired Harris’s report on Tuesday night.

The anti-infanticide stand taken by YWAM workers has rattled a key Brazilian government department, which, as a result of international pressure, is developing a new policy that purportedly advocates the protection of at-risk indigenous children. Meanwhile, a legislative push against infanticide is gaining momentum in the Brazilian legislature, according to the Harris article. One house of the Brazilian legislature recently passed a bill that would allow children whose lives are “are at risk due to cultural practices” to be removed from their homes, according to the same article.

A girl named Hakani brought the issue to light eight years ago after she was reportedly buried alive by parents who thought she was disabled and was then rescued by her brother. Hakani’s brother carried her out of the jungle on his back. Doctors later diagnosed her with treatable thyroid problems, and she was nursed back to health. But her story came to light after she was adopted by YWAM Amazon missionaries Marcia and Edson Suzuki. They, together with Braulia Ribeiro, who directs YWAM’s work in the Amazons, began speaking out about the cultural practice of infanticide among indigenous groups while at the same time providing the Suruwaha and other indigenous tribes with health care and education.

Cultural anthropologists and some Brazilian government officials have claimed that YWAM and other missionaries are using the issue of infanticide as a “smokescreen” for efforts to convert indigenous tribes to Christianity, according to the Harris article, and that they are destroying indigenous cultures by demanding that traditional practices such as infanticide be banned.

Marcia Suzuki counters such claims. “They are trying to take the focus off the problems,” she says. “Children are being killed, hundreds, in very cruel ways.”

The ABC Nightline segment, titled "The New Missionaries," recognized that at least for one girl, YWAM's stance has been an obvious lifesaver. "When looking at Hakani today - healthy and happy - it is hard to say she would have been better off dead," the report states.

Although a very complex issue, children's lives hang in the balance. Please pray that the cultural practice of infanticide be stopped. Pray also that the Brazilian legislature will follow through on the new law protecting at-risk children.