Afghanistan: HRW Concerned With Increasing Child Abuse

The Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC) has expressed heightened interests in combating child abuse, exclusion from education and lack of access to health services. Child abuse has reportedly increased by 28 percent since the last year.

In a recent report, AIHRC details discussions that were held with 4,160 kids from 27 provinces. From those interviews, the following data was collected:

1- Over 300,000 kids and teenagers are addicted to drugs

2- On average, over one hundred cases of child molestation occurred in Kabul.

3- 51 percent of the respondents worked in a way.

4- 25 percent of the respondents worked on the borders of the country.

5- 76 percent of the respondents don't have access to healthy water.

6- Close to 2,000 kids all over the country are disabled.

7- Millions of kids are excluded from education.

8- 46 percent of the girls marry before the age of 18 and 15 percent before turning 15.

9- 12 percent of the respondents have reported being discriminated due to being female.

"No parent likes their kid doing harsh works, but due to large family sizes or drug addiction of some of the fathers, kids have to work. This is while these children need to play and have fun, but they have to work from morning to evening," said Seema Samar, AIHRC Director.

"The Commission is seriously concerned with those who get away with child molestation," Child Rights Coordinator Najeebullah Babrakzai said. "Bacha Bazi or boy-molestation is an alarming issue that we have researched and we consider this notion of Bacha Bazi to be the reason for child molestation."

This AIHRC said corruption was one of the main forces that perpetuated child abuse by protecting abusers. This Commission called on the government to take initiative and curtail the trend.