The leadership of Rapha International has made the decision not to exhibit at The ICOM this year. 

This spring, Rapha submitted a six-session workshop track for the 2026 conference. The workshops were developed using the publicly available independent report on Niños de México by GRACE (Godly Response to Abuse in the Christian Environment) as a case study to help ministry leaders strengthen child protection, accountability, governance, and organizational safeguards. The report presents the findings of GRACE’s investigation into allegations of abuse at Niños de México, an investigation that Niños de México itself commissioned. After review by The ICOM leadership and its Board, they decided not to include the workshop track this year, citing legal and other concerns. 

GRACE’s report describes the profound harm to children that resulted from failures in child protection. Those failures ultimately had devastating effects not only on child victims, but also on staff and their families, volunteers, donors, and the organization itself.  

Unfortunately, it is not uncommon for children in institutional care around the world to experience neglect, abuse, and exploitation. What makes this case uniquely instructive is that a professional investigation examined the structural and cultural factors that lead to child protection failures. The report offers an opportunity for building safer, more accountable ministries, and we believe it is vitally important that we learn from it in order to better protect vulnerable children.  

Rapha respects The ICOM’s authority to determine its conference programming, and we recognize that its leadership weighed the decision carefully. We respectfully disagree with that decision. We believe that the ministry community grows safer when it examines hard cases openly, especially when an organization has commissioned an independent investigation and made the findings public. Silence and avoidance are among the conditions that foster a culture of abuse. For that reason, we have decided that exhibiting this year would not be consistent with our commitment to child protection and transparency. 

We remain committed to working alongside The ICOM and the wider ministry community, and we would welcome the opportunity to present this track at the conference in 2027 in Richmond, Virginia. In the meantime, we are developing another opportunity to discuss the GRACE report and the Niños de México case study. Use the buttons below to find more information about Rapha’s upcoming webinar series and to read the full text of the Niños de México report.