IRIN
AFGHANISTAN: More assistance needed for deprived children
28 July 2004


[This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations]

KABUL, 28 July (IRIN) - A new report on the situation of children in 
Afghanistan emphasises the need for more dramatic measures to be taken for 
those who are deprived of parental care.

The report, issued on Saturday, was a joint undertaking by the Afghan 
Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs and the United Nations Children's 
Fund (UNICEF), and attempts to give a better understanding of the 
circumstances of children lacking parental care in the country.

The report makes key recommendations for improving the plight of such 
children.

"Several years of conflict in Afghanistan have deprived so many children 
of parental care. It is a serious issue," Sami Hashemi, a UNICEF child 
protection project officer, told IRIN in the capital Kabul on Tuesday, 
noting that some 8,000 children currently lived in 36 orphanages in 
Afghanistan.

Following decades of neglect of support structures, coupled with a general 
decline in social services as a result of Afghanistan's isolation from the 
international community during the Taliban era, many communities have 
grown reliant upon orphanages to care for such children, depriving them of 
individual parental care and attention.

"I have been living in the orphanage for six years. Neither my mother nor 
my father are alive. It is very difficult for me because I have no one to 
look after me," Fahim, a 13-year-old boy, told IRIN, explaining that his 
parents had been killed during a rocket attack eight years ago.

Many child experts believe that institutional care does not benefit the 
most vulnerable children and alternatives to institutions were not being 
addressed by the aid community. The report also illustrated how 
well-meaning efforts by some could lead to increased institutionalisation, 
not less.

Hashemi pointed out that there were already a range of such institutions, 
from orphanages to hostels and daycare centres which children of 
beleaguered families were encouraged to attend. They provided food, 
education or vocational training.

"Strategies are needed for those children who have no relatives to go to," 
the UNICEF official said, noting that consideration might be given to 
enlisting the local mosque to assist in finding alternative families, such 
as host parents or foster families.

The report also underlined how children who had lost one or both parents 
face discrimination in wider society, from other youngsters, relatives and 
people in the community. If family and community-based care alternatives 
were to be supported, awareness-raising measures would be needed to tackle 
discrimination against children who did not have the support of parents, 
he stressed.

UNICEF is supporting a range of measures to address the needs of children 
deprived of parental care, including new training programmes for social 
workers and a pilot initiative to help reintegrate up to 200 children 
currently living in institutions with their families.

The UN children's agency - with government and other partners, policy 
makers and direct service providers - has also begun a process of drafting 
a National Plan of Action to support children at risk in the country.


IRIN-Asia
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Email: IrinAsia@irin.org.pk

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Copyright (c) UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs 2004


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