10 May 2010 - The United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) today welcomed a ban on the recruitment of people under the age of 18 into the national police force and called on the defence ministry to adopt a similar prohibition with regard to the army.

“This was one of the issues that the UN Special Representative for Children in Armed Conflict, Radhika Coomaraswamy, pressed the Government on during her visit to Afghanistan in February,” UNAMA said in a news release. “Despite a law requiring the age of recruitment to be 18, there has been evidence of under-age recruitment.”

An executive order from the Interior Ministry bans the recruitment of such under-age people in the police and provides for any now serving to be demobilized and reintegrated into civil society, with disciplinary action to be taken against the recruiters.

“UNAMA welcomes this order and hopes the Minister of Defence will follow with a similar decree to prevent the recruitment of children into the Afghan National Army,” the release added.

In a separate development, the UN Development Programme (UNDP) conducted a three-day workshop last week with local officials for newly-elected members of provincial councils, briefing them on the Constitution, their responsibilities, and administrative and financial procedures.