An official with the US branch of Operation Christmas Child (OCC), an outreach of the international relief ministry Samaritan's Purse, has denied claims that the programme banned its donors from offering religious items to children.

Operation Christmas Child spokesman Jim Harrelson said that media reports, claiming that the OCC had imposed the ban as part of an effort not to offend Muslims, were not true and that such a ban would be inconsistent with the ministry's global mission, policies, and practices.

"Christian literature is not banned from the OCC shoebox gifts, as reported," Harrelson insists. Some items, such as war-related toys, are removed from gift boxes. But seeing as this programme has had an evangelical focus from its inception, he notes that a gospel presentation for children is placed in every shoebox OCC distributes.

However, the ministry representative notes said there is "a slight operational difference in the way the OCC gifts are processed for overseas shipment." In the UK programme all religious literature as well as "political and military things" are initially removed from the shoeboxes, he explains.

Then, according to procedure in the UK, the OCC staff sorts through these items. However, Harrelson emphasises, the ministry "keeps all the Christian literature, and all of that is sent to the national leadership teams for distribution to the children."

The processing of the OCC shoebox gifts in the UK "is different from what we do in the US and some of the other sending countries," the programme spokesman explains. But again, he stresses, "all the Christian literature is forwarded to the national leadership teams, and it's used specifically for evangelism to children in and through the local churches that we work through."

Since 1993, Operation Christmas Child has collected and distributed more than 46 million shoebox gifts to children in more than 120 countries. Last year alone, the ministry collected 7.6 million shoebox gifts worldwide and distributed them to children in 95 countries.