Afghanistan

Protecting Children

Afghanistan is one of the poorest countries in the world. It has been devastated by more than two decades of war and many areas continue to suffer from violence, insecurity and drought. Health, education and child protection services need a massive injection of resources to reach the most vulnerable children.

During the last 20 years Save the Children's work in Afghanistan has focused on child survival, education and health. Now, Save the Children has identified a need to protect children from discrimination, violence and abuse. In collaboration with other local and international NGOs, we have established a national child protection network and aim to influence policy making so that children are protected and their rights are upheld.

Our child protection programme in Afghanistan has two main strands. First, Save the Children is increasing the capacity of child-focused groups, children’s groups, government and media to identify and respond to the violation of children’s rights. This is achieved by recruiting and training Child Protection Officers in the project areas (Mazar I Shareef city, Kandahar city and neighbouring areas in the north and south), and supporting these officers to run child rights and protection workshops. These workshops address gender, disability, discrimination and child abuse. Child Protection Officers also facilitate links between child-focused groups, encouraging information sharing and mutual support.

The second strand involves advocacy for children's rights at a national level. Using the information they have gathered locally, our focus groups can influence national policy-making, ensuring that policies are developed to protect vulnerable children and uphold their rights. To ensure that children have their say on issues affecting them, Save the Children is encouraging children’s groups to elect representatives who can participate in city, provincial or national level meetings.

Here's an example of how this works in practice: Girls' groups in Dehdadi are raising awareness about the impact of child marriages on their basic rights. They have already prevented some early marriages among their members. The same group of girls has succeeded in obtaining First Aid kits for their schools, with the co-operation of the Ministry of Public Health. They also appealed to the Ministry for clean drinking water and have had their water pumps fixed as a result.

Working children

We recently contributed to a project in Mazar-e-Sharif, Northern Afghanistan that provides children working on the streets with access to education, rest and protection.

We helped our sister organisation Save the Children UK to set up one of four resource centres in Mazar-e-Sharif city where children can meet, play, get advice and learn to read and write. To date, the Save the Children New Zealand funded centre has been used by more than 500 children (many under the age of 10) who have been forced to migrate to the city in search of work. Save the Children provides vocational skills training for the older children (aged 15-18 years) to help break the poverty cycle.