Editor in Chief: Moh. Reza Huwaida Thursday, March 28th, 2024

The Reason to Fight For

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The Reason to Fight For

Incessantly, we are living on the edges of four decades of war in Afghanistan that left hun dred and thousand of deaths and thousand of people as a result have been handicapped; millions of them have been left homeless and more than one million children orphaned or alienated from their parents with extreme vulnerability. Psychologically, these children face a deplorable situation of hunger, diseases and depressions, and war can be the main cause of such devastating desperation among today's vulnerable children who are forced to be rumbling about the streets asking for money to feed their helpless widowed mothers, sisters and brothers or getting into the Taliban groups and other criminal networks in the world and Afghanistan in particular.

It is really unfortunate to note that we do not emphasize a bit of our talks on children rights, whose parents have lost their lives for this great country Afghanistan. Perhaps, we are bound with political clashes, insecurity concerns, and peace talks or may be economic dilemma to write on. In fact, in the last few years of conflicts, million of children became orphaned and they are deprived of their crude rights and face lots of hardships and difficulties in their very early age, such as food shortage, lack of potable water, lack of clothes and shelter in particular. They are the children who are not given any importance to bring their voices to the public. They are bound with crucial barriers in early ages. Such languishing circumstances cause many of them to withdraw school as early as seven to earn money in order to feed their family on daily basis or sell themselves to the Taliban and other criminal networks in Afghanistan and worldwide to survive.

So sad to mention, today the working kids on the streets of Kabul are estimated to be 70,000 and the numbers of these children are on a great rise.
"As a result of decades of constant war, today two million children have been killed on the war ground both in Afghanistan and Iraq. Almost four to five million children have been disabled, millions of them have been left homeless, and more than one million orphaned or separated from their parents and approximately ten million children have been psychologically traumatized as a result of war", said (UNICEF) the real state of world children report. As we all have a very clear picture of these orphans that small malnourished bodies covered with tattered clothes, and most of them are without shoes, and have no access to fundamental livelihood facilities, like shelter but they are still with a great hope of a better and bright tomorrow but unfortunately that day never comes in their lives to make those horrifying memories of the past change with better ones.

They are the children who are dying of hopelessness and hunger every day around us, they get sick and die in their fifth birthday from the shortage of food, lack of access to potable water, discriminations and violence because they can't afford to visit a doctor, mostly in rural areas and some of the urban areas of Afghanistan despite numbers of NGOs working on the ground for the children, yet most of the NGOs haven't been able to cover thousands and millions of children.

In fact, the role of the war is that when the war gets over in any part of the world, the children are the most affected parts. They are the ones who have been and still are the victims of war, violence and discrimination, particularly in more vulnerable areas of the country.

Every year in Afghanistan, more than 250,000 children are reported to die of malnutrition. According to (UNOCHA) more than 10 million children are blown up as a result of landmines planted in the region. One-third of Afghanistan's landmine victims are estimated to be children.

More than a quarter of a million children under five die each year, many more than those caught in armed conflict or killed by the landmines. The war didn't only make them orphan, rather huge numbers of them have left their education because of domestic problems, like poverty, displacements and disabilities. Many of the street children are even without shelter and are dependent on relatives for a place to stay or they shake up in abandoned houses helplessly.

These children are running besides the cars are either involved in begging or working on the streets as shoe polishers, or as car washers. The purpose behind such activities is only and only to feed their hungry brothers, sisters and mothers, the circumstances have caused them to become car washers, garbage collectors while they are deprived of their crude human rights; they can't afford to attend school for getting education, instead they are introduced to become labors and field workers.

At the same time, such children are great benefits for the Taliban, they can easily buy them due to hunger, or they are recruited into the fighting groups themselves due to economic pressures. Children as young as 14 were recruited in the fighting in Afghanistan or used as the best tool for bomblost everywhere around the world. Therefore, the worldwide and particularly Afghanistan must emphasize over this issue seriously. Currently, more than any other problems in the country is the homeless and orphan children and we must bring their problems under the topics so that the world would be able to take an effective step towards them if the government can't afford.

More importantly, dozens of these children who have lost their parents during the war are living with their relatives who have given them a very isolated life in which they are not allowed to go to school, participate in the family decision making, public lives and most of them are even not allowed to have a join meal and lunch with their own children or family members, such barriers cause them extreme depression and turn them into self suicide and other harmful action.

In order to tackle this dominating and crucial issue, today our vision and mission both must be to ensure that they have access to a place to get education in order to improve their potential to secure their future. The chief mission of ours must be to bring hope and opportunity to the Afghan orphaned children and their families and support them to make an access to their rights. To accomplish this, we ask all who have means to assist the Afghan orphans through any source they can. It is strongly believed that the helpless and vulnerable children of Afghanistan through education and job skills will guarantee their families future and will be able to contribute to their communities and themselves in particular.

Finally, the government and the world must keep in consideration that today Afghan children need help and support to make sure that their rights are not overlooked so that they would be able to continue their education instead of recruiting into Taliban or other criminal groups. This will help us all to get rid of violence, criminal activities and other dangerous activities. If today this is happening only in Afghanistan, tomorrow will reach to some other countries; this is not only threatening Afghanistan but the whole world. So, in order to bring peace, prosperity and civilization in the lives of Afghan children and worldwide, let's come to join hands with one intention and one objective and that should be a world without poverty and injustice in which everyone enjoys the right to a life with dignity.

Abdul Samad Haidari is the permanent writer of the Daily outlook Afghanistan. He can be reached at outlookafg hanistan@gmail.com

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