Violations against children in Afghanistan must cease

Given their participation with Afghanistan’s security forces in the war against the Taliban, the United States and its NATO allies are accomplices in what the United Nations is calling “grave violations perpetrated against children.” One of the violations that deserves the immediate attention of the Bush administration has to do with the recruitment of children to serve in the Afghan National Auxiliary Police and Afghan National Police.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon also charged that the Taliban, which was ousted from power in 2001 following a U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan, is using young people as suicide bombers.

Ban urged all factions to immediately stop exploiting children.

President Bush should also make it clear that the United States does not condone such treatment of children — especially by Afghanistan’s security forces. This nation’s moral authority will be challenged if the United Nations’ report that was discussed by the secretary-general does not receive the proper attention.

“The report focuses on grave violations perpetrated against children in the conflict, both state and nonstate actors, who commit grave abuses against children,” Ban said. “In particular, the report highlights the fact that children have been recruited and utilized [as fighters] by state and nonstate armed groups ...”

The use of children as warriors has become commonplace in Africa, where civil wars in various countries have claimed millions of lives. Orphans are easy prey for warring factions.

And while non-governmental organizations committed to the protection and welfare of children around the world have decried the widespread abuse, there has been no sense of urgency on the part of western governments.

Blood lust

Television images of children carrying guns and gun belts taller than they are, of firing their weapons with blood lust abandon, and of young boys and girls without arms and legs have been little more than a one-day story.

But now, with U.S. and NATO forces leading the fight against the Taliban, which has established its operational center in the remote mountain region between Afghanistan and Pakistan, the appeal from U.N. Secretary-General Ban cannot be ignored.

That’s because the West has much more at stake in Afghanistan than merely propping up the government of President Hamid Karzai.

President Bush has made the spread of democracy and the rule of law the centerpieces of his foreign policy. He has preached human rights, both at meetings of the U.N. and during his trips abroad.

But the report on children being in harm’s way in the war in Afghanistan puts the administration in a bind. To remain silent will bring harsh criticism from America’s enemies. On the other hand, to publicly repudiate the Afghanistan security forces would prompt questions about the involvement of U.S. and NATO commanders.

Even though the Afghan government demobilized 7,444 underage soldiers in 2003, there has not been any monitoring of children vulnerable to recruitment, the U.N. report states.

What is happening to children in that country today certainly does not inspire confidence in America’s ability to establish true democracy around the world.

“Violence against children, specifically of a sexual nature, occurs particularly during times of instability,” Ban said. “The practice of ‘bachabaazi’ [boy-play] consists of boys kept cloistered and used for sexual and harmful social entertainment by warlords and other armed group leaders.”

The innocence of childhood is being destroyed in Afghanistan, as it has been in many parts of the world, but in this case the United States and its NATO allies have the responsibility to step in and save the children.