Child migrants, especially the ones who are alone, are “defenceless in a threefold way: they are children, they are foreigners, and they have no means to protect themselves, when, for various reasons, they are forced to live far from their homeland and are separated from their families”. Pope Francis launches a strong appeal in his message for the 103rd World Day of Migrants and Refugees 2017, which will be celebrated on 15 January 2017. Indeed, the theme for his Message is: “Child Migrants, the Vulnerable and the Voiceless”. The “sure path” which leads to God, the Pope writes, begins with “the smallest”, and “to be welcoming is a necessary condition”. Pope Francis warns against the “exploitation carried out by unscrupulous people” which harms “young girls and boys who are led into prostitution or into the mire of pornography; who are enslaved as child labourers or soldiers; who are caught up in drug trafficking and other forms of criminality; who are forced to flee from conflict and persecution, risking isolation and abandonment”. “Children – he continues – are the first among those to pay the heavy toll of emigration, almost always caused by violence, poverty, environmental conditions”, as well as the “negative aspects of globalization”. “The unrestrained competition for quick and easy profit brings with it the cultivation of perverse scourges such as child trafficking” and “the exploitation and abuse of minors”.