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 14 June 2010
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NGO calls for protection of Afghan children from armed conflict

14/06/2010

A human rights organization has called for the Afghan government, the UN Security Council and the humanitarian community to prioritize child protection, and end impunity for violators of children's rights.

Afghan children

Afghan children

The Watchlist on Children and Armed Conflict says peace in Afghanistan cannot be achieved without improving the dire situation of its children. Eva Smets, the Director of Watchlist, presented the organization's latest report at the UN on Monday.

"When we look at 2009, over a thousand children were killed in Afghanistan by aerial bombings, by night raids, by suicide bombs, by landmines explosions and so on and so forth. Also, in 2009 Afghanistan hit - it's a sad record, but it hit the world record of the most attacks on education of attacks in one country as documented by the UN. Those attacks include both school buildings as well as students, mostly girls and teachers. Furthermore, Afghanistan has about a million and a half children that are refugees in Pakistan or in Iran and it has about 160,000 IDPs, more than half of those being children. Of course, the situation of displacement makes them so much more vulnerable for all the other violations, including child recruitment and sexual violence."

The UN's Special Representative on Children and Armed Conflict, Radhika Coomaraswamy, who attended the launch of the Watchlist report pointed out that children are subject to violence both at the hands of Afghan insurgents and in counter-terrorism actions, such as aerial bombardments and drone killings.

Bissera Kostova, United Nations.

(duration: 1'44")

Sound bites

Eva Smets, Director of Watchlist on Children and Armed Conflict

When we look at 2009, over a thousand children were killed in Afghanistan by aerial bombings, by night raids, by suicide bombs, by landmines explosions and so on and so forth. Also, in 2009 Afghanistan hit - it's a sad record, but it hit the world record of the most attacks on education of attacks in one country as documented by the UN. Those attacks include both school buildings as well as students, mostly girls and teachers. Furthermore, Afghanistan has about a million and a half children that are refugees in Pakistan or in Iran and it has about 160,000 IDPs, more than half of those being children. Of course, the situation of displacement makes them so much more vulnerable for all the other violations, including child recruitment and sexual violence.
Duration: 1'05"

Radhika Coomaraswamy, Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict

We have children involved in suicide bombing, there were 7 cases of such in Afghanistan in 2009. And we have, of course, children involved in the armed groups. We also have, with regard to non-state actors, attacks on girls' schools and schools in general in some cases, on principals, on teachers and education centres.
Duration: 0'28"

Radhika Coomaraswamy, Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict

We also have the issue of children being affected by counter-insurgency strategies. We know that in the case of aerial bombardment and drone killings, there are children that are affected. Many of them are children, who are victims. So I think to some extent, we have to ensure that protection of civilians remains a primary goal of the military and to ensure that there's no collateral damage and that's minimized and children are protected. We also have the issue of children in detention, since more and more children are associated with armed groups, more and more children are also in detention. We have to ensure that the proper measures are taken to protect these children in detention.
Duration: 0'47"

Radhika Coomaraswamy, Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict

We were a little disappointed in the Declaration of the Peace Jirga. We expected that there would be more child protection provisions in that declaration, though there is a declaration of children in it. But we feel that perhaps focusing on children, giving them a priority is a way of trying to bring all sides together.
Duration: 0'19"