30 January 2011 - The Government of Afghanistan and the United Nations today signed a child protection plan to end recruitment and use of children in the Afghan National Security Forces and other violations.

“Today’s agreement contributes towards the placing of the protection of children affected by the conflict in Afghanistan at the centre of the Government’s agenda,” said Radhika Coomaraswamy, the Secretary-General’s Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict, at the signing ceremony in the Afghan capital of Kabul.

She said that signing the Action Plan was “an important first step” to end practices such as under-age recruitment, killing and maiming, rape and other forms of sexual violence, attacks against schools and hospitals, abduction and denial of humanitarian access.

“Let us start now with a wide partnership, full ownership and renewed dedication to one goal: protect all children from the impact of the conflict and to prepare them for a durable peace in Afghanistan.”

Afghan Minister of Foreign Affairs Zalmai Rassoul and Staffan de Mistura, Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Afghanistan and head of the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) co-signed the action plan with Special Representative Coomaraswamy. Peter Crowley, Representative of UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) in Afghanistan, attended the ceremony.

“Today we come together to undertake a big step for a better future for the children of Afghanistan,” said Minister Rassoul, adding that protection of children was not just the responsibility of the Government but of the entire community.

Implementation of the Action Plan will help remove the Afghan National Police from a UN list which includes organizations from 13 countries with “grave violations against children in armed conflict.”

Calling implementation of the UN Security Council-endorsed Action Plan “an ambitious undertaking” Special Representative Coomaraswamy called on the international community to provide reliable, sustainable and long-term support through engagement and allocation of appropriate resources.

“With this solid foundation for the prevention and response to child rights violations in place, let us begin as immediately as today to implement these commitments,” the Special Representative told journalists ahead of her meeting with the Inter-Ministerial Steering Committee on Children and Armed Conflict.

The Steering Committee – established in July 2010 – consists of the head of the National Directorate of Security, the Presidential Advisor on Education and Health, and eight Ministers who with UN support created the Action Plan.
Its signing commits the Government to strengthening birth registration and mechanisms to better verify the age of recruits, as well as to investigate and prosecute groups and individuals who recruit minors.

The violations committed against children are monitored by the UN-led Country Task Force on Children and Armed Conflict, which includes representatives from UNICEF, UNAMA, Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), World Health Organization (WHO), Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC) and two international non-governmental organizations.

Earlier today, Coomaraswamy met privately with Asila Wardak, the Director of Human Rights and Women's Affairs in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Afghanistan (HRIWA).

She also visited a mine education awareness programme in Kabul to discuss the risk children face from unexploded ordnance when playing or helping with household chores, such as collecting firewood or tending animals.

An average of 31 children were killed or injured every month last year– roughly one child per day – by landmines and other explosive remnants of war, according to Mine Action Coordination Centre of Afghanistan (MACCA).

Coomaraswamy is scheduled to meet tomorrow with key Afghan and international officials to gauge progress made since her February 2010 visit where she urged President Hamid Karzai, General Stanley McChrystal and a number of Afghan Ministers to provide greater preventions against child casualties.

By UNAMA