In name of merciful God, I would like to welcome to dear friends, the subject of the debate through Campaign of Change to Life program is the lack of law for disobedience of Children, its effects on the community and children and dissemination of identity of victimized children through media. The guests in this debate are Ali Eftekhari the spokesman of Ministry of Labor, Social Affairs, Martyrs and disabled, Belal Ahmad Sidiqi the representative of Children department of Afghanistan Human Rights Independent Commission (AHRIC), Qasem Rahmani the consultant in Afghanistan Free Media Support Office, Behman Takween the head of Takween legal and consulting office and Mrs.Zarmina Behroz the in charge of Save the Children. Once again welcome all to the debate.
Question: Mr. Takween! What caused that the law of disobedience be provided while there is the law of punishment in the country?
Answer: Considering the need of the community when the cabinet found out in 2003 that Afghan government is one of the signatories of Children Convention so it decided that the law of disobedience also should exists therefore the law was approved and now the mentioned law is enforceable.
On the other hand when Afghanistan appeared as independent countries in the worlds , a need also raised that it should adjust itself with all international norms/standards so Afghan government did all these efforts.
Question: Mr. Rahmani, what is the reason that the judges don’t implement sometimes the law of punishment regarding the disobediences of the children?
Answer: As you know, the common people are not only those who don’t know law awareness rather considering to provinces there are other people such as judges, attorney generals who don’t know much about.
So we see that the judges also don’t have enough awareness about the enforced laws so their decisions also cannot be adjusted with the enforced laws in the country.
So due to this the civil institutions and Afghan people criticize that the work should be handed over to those are capable, though unfortunately less attention has been paid to this.
Question: Mr. Eftekhari, by your opinion can the media cause the propagation of the crimes in the children?
Answer: I think task/duty of the media is to give information not to encourage the children to become the criminals; they have just authority to disseminate the information. I was the witness that the small children were working in kilns of the bricks along with their parents but the media did not explained the issue that this is also a crime, or they did not tell to people in which age the children should work and which works, the media has the assignment to consider all sides of the events during the publishing their reports, they should know that the children of today make the future of the country, the points must be heeded which causes the accusations against them or make problems for them in the future.
Question: Some of the media say that it would be effective if we disseminate the pictures of victimized children and would notify the related institutions but the children rights support institutions say that this would cause the increment of work so Mrs. Zarmina what is your view about?
Answer : I think when a child is victimized and its pictures are disseminated by the the media, the environment that the child is living in would be so tight for him to live in, the groundwork of victimization of other children would also be prepared, considering the problems in the our community and the reaction of the people to the cases , the dissemination of pictures of a child who have been sexually abused by a group of people and people see it would cause the insult of the child in the community. This situation would definitely create problems for future of the child.
Question: Mr. Rahmani, is the dissemination of pictures of victimized children is legal according to media view while this has effect on the community?
Answer: The article number 45 of Media Law says that the dissemination of pictures of those have been faced to violence is prohibited, but the basic problems is this that the mentioned article orders generally no further explanations has been given that the public can know them. The implementation of the mentioned laws for people and media is a difficult task because they are journalists not the lawyers, so complete awareness must be given to staff of media in field of the rights by the legal experts.
Question: Is there any way that the people are given the awareness regarding safe keeping the identity of the victimized children through the media?
Answer: I think if we want to get this goal then we need to implement the law completely and heed to law, when the media disseminate the pictures of victimized children it shows the unawareness of the media from the law.
Question: Mrs. Behroz! By your opinion have the media taken any effective step, and which works must be done in future?
Answer: As Afghanistan is war stricken country, the media have done a lot within past ten years as the people has gotten 85% of awareness through media which has been beneficial to different fields of the life so we can say that the media have repelled their responsibility about, we request the media to provide in future the reports in the interests of Afghan nation and Afghan people not to disseminate the reports that provoke the concerns of the people.
Question: One of the participants of the debate has asked what works has been done by the ministry of Labor and Social about?
Answer: The ministry of Labor, social affairs, martyrs and disabled has brought a number of three million children out of six million children under its coverage that are faced with the risk, has no caretaker or are working on the roads. The support of the mentioned children starts through giving awareness to their families, the guarantee is taken from the children and their families that they would not attend again the roads for working, and then the ministry provides the groundwork of working for them.
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