Jessica Maw, November 25th 2008, 1:30pm, Blog 14
The conflict in Afghanistan is worsening and with this more children are being killed, exploited and abused. The Taliban is persisting in using children as suicide bombers, while international and Afghan forces have unintentionally killed dozens of children as they attempt to beat back the insurgency, according to the report from Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, which detailed several examples.
The report tells that on May 16th 2008 a twelve year old boy was used as a suicide bomber. He approached a joint International Security Assistance Force (ISAF)-Afghan National Army foot patrol where it is believed that his suicide vest was detonated remotely.
The report also tells of an incident in November last year where a suicide bomber targeted parliamentarians on a road in northern Baghlan province led police and bodyguards to fire indiscriminately. The result of this attack was 52 school children dead.
Another case of children being exploited is that of children being sexually abused by the members of the armed forces and armed groups. The case mentioned in the report is that of two police officers who were arrested for sexually abusing a 15 year old boy but both were later released after bribing the authorities.
A study by UNAMA states that children are being used as suicide bombers by the Taliban with most of these children being 15 or 16. These children are being tricked, promised money or forced to become suicide bombers.
The authorities in Afghanistan need to improve their laws and their law enforcement. Children should be made to feel safe where there are figures of authority not at risk.
http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=29042&Cr=afghan&Cr1=
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