Afghanistan Times
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AT-KABUL: The Mobile Mini-Circus for Children (MMCC) and the Afghan Educational Children’s Circus (AECC) established a council for children to convey their problems in better manner to the relevant authorities.
As many as 450 children from nine provinces and 10 internally displaced persons (IDPs) camps are part of the council called “Afghan National Children Shura”. Representatives of the council would take up the problems, faced by the teenagers, in meetings with the Ministry of Information and Culture officials. Later, the ministry would convey the problems to the government.
These children complained about kidnapping of children, lack of classroom and playgrounds in the schools, child labor, early and forces marriages, harassment of teenage girls, use of children in the illicit drugs trade and maltreatment.
Sayed Mujtaba Hashimi, a 13-year old boy from Baghlan province, said that children are the most vulnerable segment of the society. “Every day we witness buying and purchasing of children, as they are commodities. Children are forced to sell narcotics in streets. Children are sexually abused at workplaces,” he said.
Criticizing the government for its failure to reach the children in provinces and address their challenges, he told Afghanistan Times that teenagers are prone to frequent violence in provinces as compared to the capital city. He said that families in provinces are not letting girls to continue education while take hard work from boys.
Rahmatullah Sahil, another teenager from Bamyan province, said that children in his province are facing various problems such as inaccessibility to healthcare facilities in the remote districts, absence of amusement parks, lack of playgrounds in schools and addiction of children to narcotics.
He said that all members of the newly formed council have been gathered to discuss problems faced by children in their respective provinces.
Nazia, a 12-year girl who lives in an IDP camps, said the displaced children went through many troubles this winter. She argued the government to provide land to the displaced families so they could build homes.
