NEW YORK - A human rights organization has called for the Afghan government, the UN Security Council and the humanitarian community to prioritize child protection, and end impunity for violators of children's rights.

The Watchlist on Children and Armed Conflict says peace in Afghanistan cannot be achieved without improving the dire situation of its children. Eva Smets, the Director of Watchlist, presented the organization's latest report at the UN on Monday.

"When we look at 2009, over a thousand children were killed in Afghanistan by aerial bombings, by night raids, by suicide bombs, by landmines explosions and so on and so forth. Also, in 2009 Afghanistan hit - it's a sad record, but it hit the world record of the most attacks on education of attacks in one country as documented by the UN,” said Smets.

“Those attacks include both school buildings as well as students, mostly girls and teachers. Furthermore, Afghanistan has about a million and a half children that are refugees in Pakistan or in Iran and it has about 160,000 IDPs, more than half of those being children. Of course, the situation of displacement makes them so much more vulnerable for all the other violations, including child recruitment and sexual violence," she added.

The UN's Special Representative on Children and Armed Conflict, Radhika Coomaraswamy, who attended the launch of the Watchlist report, pointed out that children are subject to violence both at the hands of Afghan insurgents and in counter-terrorism actions, such as aerial bombardments and drone killings.

UN News Centre