Afghanistan: is not a place for Children

Injuries, amputations, poverty, forced labour, denial from education, various exploitations, trafficking and sale of body organs, child abuse etc. are problems that have made Afghanistan unsafe for children. But the thing that causes concern more than anything is that Afghan children's lives are constantly in danger.
No one denies that when a child is killed, a great tragedy has taken place. Now imagine that this tragedy extends the whole length and breadth of Afghanistan, a place that in four years (from 1 September 2010 to 31 December 2014) 2302 children have lost their lives as a result of the conflict in this country with a 30 million population, and 5047childnre have seriously been injured.
Most of the child deaths according to Inter-Press Service reports include:
- Child abandoning is the first cause of death of children according to UN reports. The number of children that are abandoned for various reasons such as death of parents have been killed reaches 331 cases.
- The second cause is injury which due to lack of children's access to medical care has left 920 of them dead.
- Also the use of homemade explosives by armed groups in populated areas has left 664 children dead.
- Explosives leftover from the war has killed or maimed 328 children.
- Also military air raids by the international forces has killed or injured 38 children.
- 5 children have been killed during cross border shootings from Pakistan and 52 injured.
These figures show the doubling of the number of deaths to previous year and shows that children constantly suffer from pressures of war. The important point is that sadly this trend has continued in 2015 with the grave security conditions.
Also the death of children under 5 is cause for great concern. According to existing figures 97 out of 1000 children die before they reach the age of five due to malnutrition and lack of health and hygiene services.
Even though through adopting health and hygiene measures, the Afghan government has managed to move from number one spot in world child mortality rates, and tries to improve living conditions, nonetheless there is still a long way to further improve conditions, something that will be very difficult without the help of other countries and international organizations.
We hope that the writing of such articles and their publication will create the opportunity for further deliberation of the conditions of children in Afghanistan, children who suffer from violence more than their peers in many countries, but they do not have a voice to be heard.

Farzane Mostofi
International Relations Expert