Entering a big terminal in Kandahar city the driver stopped the car. I was yet to lift my travel bag when I was engulfed with four or five smeared and torn clothed, dusty but innocent faced children, aged eight to twelve years. Grumbling and asking each other to go away and find another purchaser, but none of them was ready to go unless I purchased. All were offering and imploring me to buy beverage and cake. When the second car reached, the same scene was repeated. About ten meters to the left another long haired child seeming thirteen or fourteen years old was pushing a heavy cart full of goods. One of the cart wheels was caught in a small pit. I helped him pull it out and asked him some questions. His name was Mohammad Bari. He told that he was an orphan."My father was killed in a road side blast five years ago. Since then I have been involved in this work. I have to feed five other people." Bari told. I asked him about education and the answer was "no".  A hotel manager in the terminal told me that it was the daily scenario there. It repeats over and over.

There is no exact statistics to show how many Afghan children find the life alike and how many even have worse condition than that. But it is certain that the scene I witnessed and explained above is just a short trailer of the tragic life of Afghan children. It portrays just a corner of their problems. This is how the life of a massive number of children in Afghanistan is. Unaware of their basic and humanitarian rights, they pass their days with no dreams working hard to feed themselves. More tragic scenes can be seen in other cities of Afghanistan. Even in the capital city of Kabul if one walks in main streets particularly around the Pamir cinema, he can see large number of small children selling used-clothes, nuts and gums, delivering goods for the market owners and some even beseeching in a very poor condition.

All around the world children are indeed considered builders of the nation and pillars of the society. The future of a nation completely depends on the children of that particular nation. In a bigger context the future of the world relies on human children. Therefore, children need to be valued and given importance. Their training, moral capacities, self-confidence and education become very important as they are considered the key traits in path selection and definition of the future. Moreover, the world needs to train the children in accordance with the ideals defined by the United Nations. (The ideals suggest training the children: liberal, personable and pacifist, with spirit of understanding and solidarity) 

Despite the efforts made by the United Nations to protect the child rights, (forming UNICEF and UNCRC) and struggles of civil societies, Afghan children don't find much difference in their live. Still they are deprived of their fundamental rights. Many children die at birth before they open their eyes to the new world, millions are deprived from education, hundred thousands of them have to work hard daily and eight varied abuses and harsh words, thousands of them suffer from different diseases with no treatment and many are sold or suffer from gender-violence.

For two core reasons; traditional tribal culture and three decades of devastating war in Afghanistan, Afghan children have been kept deprived of their basic rights. More or less two third of the Afghan population live village life, and vast majority of them still push on their live basing on tribal values and customs.  Since the tribal system is a patriarchal system, the natural characteristics of this system are such that can institutionalize the gender discrimination and make it seem normal phenomena of the society. It allows no child or woman to share idea or make any decision. Furthermore; it considers no right for the children, and believes that the only responsibility parents have towards children is to fulfill their clothing and feeding requirements. In fact the will of the tribe is submitted to the head of the tribe and the will of family is put on the mercy of the head of the family.

Three decades of imposed war in Afghanistan in the shape of foreign interference and civil war has put this country at least a century back. apart from the demolition of the  infrastructures, massive amount of migration, disunity of the nation and death of the millions of innocent and guilty people,  the war has cost many children lose their parents and leave them in a situation wherein they are just alive but they don't live. The situations have made them just easy victims for the varied gangs from kidnappers to narcotic sellers.

Two generations of Afghan, as the result of the war, are figured to remain illiterate.  In terms of education the hard-line suppressive regime of Taliban cost the biggest loss for Afghanistan. Violence and intimidation were used as a routine to prevent girls and women from school. In the course of time when Taliban were ruling Afghanistan only one million children were attending schools. While now according to the official statistics some eleven (11) million children are enlisted in schools all across the country.

Afghan children confront multiple problems regularly and the prime concern of most of them is food and clothing. While in other (targeted) countries at least the basic rights of children like; food, clothing, security and education; are protected by the governments. No change and betterment should be anticipated in Afghanistan as long as the people have the same worries and concerns and the children face the same difficulties. The change only comes when youths and children are free of the concerns of food and clothing and receive standard education.

Education, Poverty, lack of shelter, insecurity, child harassment and gender-sex, under aged-marriages, abuse of international mafia, labor children abuse, family violence against the children and migration are the major problems in the life of most of the afghan children and big obstacles in the way of their progression.  

1- Education: although, in entirety the education system in Afghanistan has started working after the collapse of Taliban regime, yet it faces a lot of challenges and lapses. It has to overcome many shortcomings in both quality and quantity spheres. Mr. Farooq Wardak the minister of Education at the beginning of the last educational year told that about five million and three hundred thousand qualified Afghan children aged seven to eighteen, due to economic and social problems are prevented from attending school. He added that still some eleven million Afghans are deprived of education. Hamid Karzia the ex-Afghan president continuously requested Taliban not to fire or lock schools, instead of dealing them effectively and adopting an appropriate approach. Official reports say that recently 650 schools are locked in Northern provinces of the country where Taliban have stronger existence. It doesn't have any meaning except that children are deprived of school and education in these areas. More or less 40 percent of the schools are lacking buildings and children study under the tents or destructed buildings. On the other hand neither the teachers are paid enough salary to fulfill their requirements and work with peaceful mind nor they are provided security. In recent years many teachers have been kidnapped, tortured and some even have been shot dead or beheaded.

2- Poverty: poverty is one of the prime factors in vulnerability of Afghan children. Afghanistan is a country where millions of people including massive number of children live under the poverty line. Huge numbers of Afghan children are forced to work hard physically. Being the only source of income, they are not only obliged to feed themselves but also to feed their families. Variant abuses; from verbal violence to physical punishment are practiced on them during the course of work. The only option they can find before themselves is tolerance to protect their jobs and source of incomes. Severe tireless work has caused them different physical and mental defections and diseases. Worse than them is that still cases are seen wherein parents sell their children as goods. A field research survey conducted by Human rights commission of Afghanistan notifies that over all fifty one percent of the Afghan children in some way or the other work but the due factor for 45 percent of them is poverty.

3- Under age marriages: in many areas around the country (mostly in villages and rarely in cities) still the custom is such that forces the girls to wed against their own will before they complete their fifteen. In many cases these under aged-girls are married to men who are two or three times older than them. This process is not restricted to the girls only. Some of the boys also (mostly in the villages) get married when they are younger than seventeen or eighteen. These illiterate and uninformed boys and girls become parent in the prime years of their marriages. These new mothers in one hand are obviously not ready for the training and nutrition of their children and in the other side are confronted to the death because of the delivery bleeding and early pregnancy.

4- Lack of house: the forth factor which makes Afghan children vulnerable is lack of family and shelter. As earlier mentioned; thousands of Afghan children have lost their parents and houses during the long term war as a result they live in low standard orphanages and some even in streets. The report of mentioned survey approves that some eight percent of the surveyed children are living in orphanages, they lack family.