UNICEF makes progress in child-soldier demobilisation work

The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) has announced that it has made progress in demobilising child soldiers in Afghanistan, an initiative targeting an estimated 8,000 such children in the country. Over the last 23 years of conflict in Afghanistan, thousands of children have been used by warlords and fighting forces. And while hundreds of these have been identified, some 150 have been demobilised in four districts of the northern city of Konduz since the demobilisation programme began in early February. "It is very positive that we have had over 500 young people from over four districts in Konduz that have already come forward in one week," Edward Carwardine, a UNICEF spokesperson, told IRIN on Thursday. The child soldier demobilisation effort is running parallel to the UN-backed main disarmament demobilisation and reintegration initiative (DDR) programme, which is expected to target over 100,000 ex-soldiers across the country. UNICEF, in collaboration with its partners, will undertake community-based rehabilitation projects enabling ex-child soldiers to obtain education and create opportunities for an alternative to military life. UNICEF said that all of the demobilised children underwent medical and psychosocial assessments and participated in briefings on mine risks, drug abuse, HIV/AID prevention and basic health education. "In addition, each child has signed an oath, underlining their civic responsibilities and has been issued with a personal identification number," Carwardine noted. UNICEF said all the demobilised children had also been offered voluntary testing for HIV and sexually transmitted diseases. According to UNICEF, the criteria for eligibility in the scheme are that a child soldier should have been or still is in a military unit which has a formal command structure and a clear commander, and they should have been involved in activities that are directly related to that unit. "The programme is not open to young people generally... there has to be a clear link to some sort of a fighting unit with a command structure," Carwardine said. Being a new exercise, it is proving challenging and difficult for UNICEF implementing partners in the field. One implementing partner staff member, who declined to be named, told IRIN from Konduz that local commanders wanted to benefit from the scheme by introducing non-combatant children or non-eligible people to verification teams. "Commanders are introducing hundreds of children. Many of them are not or were not in military units, thinking like DDR we are paying them incentives," he said, noting that it was difficult to verify eligible underage children as many such children had either a direct or indirect connection to local commanders who wanted them to be part of this UN-backed process. UNICEF said around ninety people were excluded from the demobilisation process on the basis of being over the age of 18, or not meeting the definitions for former child soldiers. UNICEF estimates that there are a total of 8,000 former child soldiers in Afghanistan, many of whom have already left the fighting forces informally over the past year. "All are in urgent need of assistance to fully reintegrate into civilian life, especially in the areas of education and sustainable income-generation," the UNICEF spokesman said.