When the Taliban were brought back to power, it blocked the country’s path to development and forced society into regression. This regression encompasses all aspects of life, affecting all sectors of society. Among them, children have suffered greater harm, with various categories emerging. Each category, due to their inherent characteristics over which they have no control, becomes distinct from others, and the fundamentalist and exclusionary policies of the Taliban have harmed them. Initially, it can be said that no child, even if they are the child of the Taliban supreme leader, Mullah Hibatullah, has been spared from the harm of the Taliban’s regressive policies. However, overall, children are categorized primarily based on their gender. Girls face a darker fate and a more dismal future under the Taliban’s white flag compared to boys, with transgender children facing even more challenges than girls. Other characteristics such as ethnicity, language, religion, region, etc., also influence the level of vulnerability of children to the Taliban’s policies. For example, a Hazara Shia girl from Daikundi province tolerates more deprivation than a Pashtun boy from Kandahar. A Daikundi girl, born in Daikundi, is deprived of certain privileges and rights such as electricity and paved roads, because of her birthplace. Furthermore, being born Hazara and not receiving favorable treatment from the Taliban due to their Shia beliefs, she endures deprivation. Additionally, being born a girl and facing the Taliban’s patriarchal and misogynistic rule further deprives her of her fundamental rights. And finally, because she speaks Persian, she faces discrimination. This compounded deprivation is the least a Daikundi girl might endure. Other children may have one or two fewer reasons for deprivation, but they are undoubtedly deprived of their most basic rights, and this harm is not insignificant.
The power struggle that has resulted in the Taliban seizing control over the fate of the people of Afghanistan has victimized children. Afghan children are currently facing a myriad of challenges, having lost their hope for a bright future and human dignity. These challenges range from hunger and thirst to the dangers of planted mines, leading to inadequate education and deprivation thereof, further towards deprivation of recreation and joy, ultimately diverting towards child labor camps. Some of these children are sent to Taliban Jihadist schools to become cannon fodder for Taliban politicians in the future, contradicting human rights and becoming violators themselves in a few years. While the Taliban deprive students of Jihadist schools of opportunities for human life, recreation, joy, and modern education, they groom them to resemble themselves, lacking much connection with contemporary humanity. They neither understand the essentials of modern human life nor can they connect with present-day humans. Some other boys join the ranks of militants and are not only used on the battlefield but also exploited as sexual slaves. These are the boys who are recruited into Taliban Jihadist schools.
Girls, however, suffer differently. They are collectively deprived of their fundamental rights, including education, recreation, freedom of movement, and the choice of attire. Some of them are recruited into Taliban-controlled religious schools where they undergo brainwashing to serve as sexual objects for Jihadists and Taliban commanders in the future. Due to their inability to connect with society, the Taliban receive negative responses to marriage proposals, hence they transform girls’ religious schools into marriage brokerage businesses. According to reports from the Hasht-e-Subh Daily, girls studying in religious schools in Kunduz previously refused marriage proposals from the Taliban. Still, they are now encouraged to do so in schools, and some have agreed to marry Taliban fighters. These girls are mostly below the legal age and, being deceived by Taliban clerics, unwittingly fall into the trap of Taliban fighters’ sexual desires, forsaking all their human rights. These girls become victims of the political situation prevailing in the country, sacrificing their lives and forfeiting all their rights by entering religious schools and marrying Taliban members.
This is just a small portion of the situation imposed by Taliban rule on the fate of children in the country. Issues like this receive less attention from the media, the people of Afghanistan, the global community, and human rights organizations. Despite the widespread distribution of videos showing sexual abuse by Taliban clerics in mosques against students and teachers in religious schools, we have not witnessed a serious reaction from society domestically and international human rights defenders. Unfortunately, children in Afghanistan, like Afghanistan itself, have diminished in importance, and their sorrow fails to arouse the attention of the global community. Instead, the international community, especially some regional and neighboring countries, attempts to legitimize Taliban rule as an inevitable matter and engage with it for future interaction. This further exacerbates the duration of Taliban rule and consequently the magnitude of suffering and deprivation of Afghan children. Countries advocating for engagement with the Taliban may gain political benefits. Still, the price is paid by boys and girls in various parts of Afghanistan, some less, some more, each commensurate with their identity characteristics and whether they have been recruited into Taliban-controlled schools or not.
Children in Afghanistan, who have been victims of the policies of countries and Afghan rulers several times before, are still experiencing new cycles of victimization. Some are victims of displacement, others of the consequences of floods and earthquakes in the absence of responsible governance, and some are drawn into religious and Jihadist schools. In contrast, others endure hunger and thirst, and some are forced into child labor, and so forth. We see from all sides that international organizations and influential countries compete to establish relations with the Taliban, while these actions severely victimize children. The United Nations, human rights-defending countries, and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) overlook these small victims. It seems neither Islam nor the Organization of Islamic Cooperation comes to the aid of Afghan children, nor does the United Nations Charter and the Convention on the Rights of the Child address the needs of Afghan children, nor do countries claiming to support human and child rights.
You can read the Persian version of this analysis here:
قربانی بزرگ، قربانیان کوچک؛ کودکان در «سیاست تعامل با طالبان» قربانی میشوند | روزنامه ۸صبح
