Children and minors have been utilized for committing crimes of various kinds since long – robbery, selling drugs, sexual abuse etc. Countries of the world - mainly developing and under developed nations - have set their feet on the rights of children, albeit almost all nations have signed international regulations on rights of children. In Arab countries, for example, children trafficked from third world countries are used as camel jockeys.

Over the last decade children, who are as innocent as angels, have increasingly been used for executing terror attacks in Afghanistan, mainly for suicide attacks. Al Qaida have been recruiting and training children for terror attacks in various parts of the world. Al-Qaida is actually initiator of this sickening trend.

In the recent years, the Taliban too, have increasingly engaged children and teenagers in their group. Last year in February, Afghan police intercepted 41 children whom insurgents were planning to use as suicide bombers. In the same month, Afghan forces rearrested two children in Kandahar province on suspicion of planning to be suicide bombers. The two were from a group of would-be suicide bombers who were pardoned by President Hamid Karzai.

Here is how the Taliban brainwash the children to use them in launching suicide attacks: They are given amulets containing verses from the Holy Quran by Taliban commanders who tell them they would be protected from the explosion. They are also told that when they detonated their bomb, everyone else would die but they would survive.

This is a very dangerous trend. Already the children in Afghanistan are suffering due to lack of security and poor economic condition, their use in crimes, specifically, terrorism would have horrifying prospects. Afghanistan’s future is highly dependent on the children nurturing today. Attempts of militants to develop extremism among the children and youth may have far destructing outcomes for us. Such acts by Taliban further prove that they do not belong to religion of Islam, as Islam completely bans violence on children and their use in crimes.

The act of Taliban to use the children in carrying out terror attacks needs to be widely condemned. Such an act is anti-Islam and anti-human. UN and Human rights organizations must create more awareness among the people regarding this issue and our Ullama must urge the Taliban to stop misusing the children.