Recently, the United Nations Human Rights Council in its 16th session has given a full day to discuss and find out the root cause of problems surrounded the children living or working on the streets.
The children are today under extreme stress of poverty and vulnerability. Everywhere we only find kids running on the streets selling hand stuffs or cleaning the cars to feed their families.
Today many children living in urban slums end up working on the streets. More recently, the NATO and U.S. led military operations in the some parts of the country have caused more casualties most of whom were children and increased in the number of orphan children in Afghanistan.
According to the human rights studies, each street child has rights to be protected from harassment, torture and humiliating treatment and access to healthcare and education like any other children. Naturally, they are more vulnerable than children protected by parents or extended families.
In fact, street children are more likely to be targeted in conflict and are less capable of defending their rights. Basically, they are continuingly ignored of their fundamental rights and protection especially in countries like Afghanistan.
Most probably, the police and other childcare protection organization generally come in contact with street children only in front of media or when they are raped, killed, tortured and forcefully married or they are involved in any criminal activities, either as victims or suspects. Rather than, there is no specific action taken before it appears on the ground. Surrounded in such situations, the children may be spoiled to delinquency, vagrancy or begging, drug abuse, sexual harassment or exploitation, torture, child trafficking and child labor. Mostly, the police intervention is not part of preventive strategy but a reaction to criminal behavior.
In most of the under developing countries like Afghanistan, the street children are very likely to be recruited into terrorism and live a short live than children who are nourished by their parents or extended families.
How street children are perceived by the police, public and government plays a crucial role in shaping the force’s response. An ordinary policemen or public including government only sees a street child as a problem and violator of the law rather than the victims of those unhealthy and cruel circumstances that made him a street child or the violator of law and atmosphere. The situation is further compounded by a lack of awareness and sensitization as well as the inadequacy of legal safeguards for children.
Perceiving the children’s sever vulnerabilities, there is an urgent need to develop a holistic approach to child protection. However, numerous factors are hampering the creation of an environment that ensures the best interests of the child. The main challenges in this regard are an inadequate legislative framework, discriminatory law, particularly those related to a girl’s age of majority and undecided matters such as the age of criminal responsibility.
Additionally, terrorism and other security issues are eating away at our already limited resources in the country, while there is often a lack of sensitization among people involved in the welfare and rehabilitation of children. Limited access to education further complicates and worsens the situation.
The national commission on the Rights of Children seems to have been abandoned. There has been always a considerable concern over the rights of children and about the consequences of the child streets whom are recruited to terrorist activities and other criminal involvements.
On the other hand, improvement has been noticed in some areas of the country by various NGOs working on child rights. They are well-cognizant of their constant accomplishment on childcare protection on various platforms. They prove and bring out the vulnerabilities of children in Afghanistan and make it visible to the whole world. The children of Afghanistan not doubt remained the most effect ones in the world.
Unfortunately, on the welfare of children the government has very rare participation. Every year international community spends millions of dollars in Afghanistan but still the children rights is vulnerable.
It is said, that “charity first begins from your own homes” so we must make a law to spend that big amounts of money on our own children who are suffering from hunger, diseases and who really need our support and sympathy. Such planning will surely improve the situation but the enormity of the challenges requires a more coordinated strategy and the accordance of due importance to the issue of street children.
Various departments, including social welfare, education, health, local government and the police have to play their role in protecting the rights of children living or working on the streets. As far as police response is concerned, it should be seen in isolation as the force needs to work in tandem with other organizations.
The right approaching would be linked with public response to the overall goal of child protection and reaffirm, institutionalize and replicate the good practices of one province in the other three. Capacity-building is likely to bring considerable improvement in the police department’s dealing with street children.
The proposed legislation on the National Commission on child Rights, the Child Rights Protection Authority and other bills needs to be expedited. At the same time, civil society must come forward and assist the police in implementing preventive strategies.
Above all, the government needs to set up a monitoring system to meet the requisite standards of child protection. Otherwise, meaningful and sustained improvement cannot be achieved. These efforts ought to be supplemented by vocational training and skill-building courses for out-of-school children.
Last but not least, the childish Working Group set up by the law and Justices Commissions of Afghanistan should be activated to develop rehabilitation programes for children at risk of offending in general and street children in particular.