Afghanistan Times
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Insecurity, lawlessness and joblessness have been on the rise. There are too many factors behind the rise in these problems, but the biggest one is militancy. Around two million children have been pushed into the streets to work and augment their families’ income. What did push them into works instead of being in schools? Here again the biggest factor is the ongoing conflict. According to the Head of All Afghanistan Federation of Trade Unions, Dr. Mohammad Adil, the number of such children has been persistently on the rise. He said hard labor affect children physically and mentally and their future. The number is shocking. When such a huge number of children is working in the streets, how we will make progress in education and science. This is an unbearable loss particularly when teachers in provinces have refused to attend schools and impart education to the schoolchildren because of growing insecurity. The Taliban have shut hundreds of schools across the country. Besides insecurity and the Taliban, there is a nagging poverty that is pushing these children into child labor. Here the government is responsible because the distribution of wealth has never been equitable. Poverty has been on the spread as more and more people have been falling into poverty because of a permanent poor-rich standoff. Since the figures have come from a private organization and not from a government organization, which clearly indicates the government lacks data and figures how many children are in the streets and do labor, let alone devising some plans and projects for their welfare to get them to schools. Given the economic divides, will we ever be able to form a developed society where our children have access to education without fear and economic woes? Will we ever form a society where the son of shopkeeper will reach presidency? And where a driver’s son becomes an engineer? Given the current circumstances and weaker capacity of the government and the rise in insecurity, the answer unfortunately is no. but it doesn’t mean the situation will ever remain like this. No. Someone will have to take the lead. Someone will emerge with extraordinary leadership traits and that will be the turning point in our history. Such a leader will emerge from among the nation. And such a leadership will not be planted from abroad. This leadership will have the capacity to translate vision into reality. The nation eagerly awaits such a leadership that has the guts and acumen to bring the Taliban to the table of talks. This is quite unfortunate that the Taliban cannot tolerate the culture of reason, debate, questioning and tolerance, harmony and change. And this is why they cannot tolerate the spread of knowledge and scholarship. They want all Afghan children suicide bombers and terrorists. Education is like irrigating deserts while depriving children of their right to education means pushing them into deserts of ignorance. The Taliban and poverty have laid siege to education of the children of the nation. We as a nation have been in a sticky situation because of militancy. Education needs to be set free at any cost. As discrimination, poverty and ignorance restrain growth whereas investment in education increase growth that leads to creating more jobs and new wealth for all of us then why there is lack of investment in education and why these millions children are in the streets instead of being in schools?
