Abuse of Children

Hello Dear Readers! It is pleasure being with you again. Today, I am pleased to present you another Round Table Discussion from a series of discussions of Life Changing Campaign. Our today’s discussion is about Abuse of Children. We have invited some distinguished guests whom I would like to welcome to our today’s discussion. Our guests are: Engineer Mohammad Yousef from Ashiana Organization, Mr. Bilal Sediqi, Deputy Head of Child Support Division of the Regional Office of Independent Human Rights Commission and Mr. Awrang Mukhtar, Author and Social Affairs Expert. We will begin our discussion with Mr. Seddiqi.

Question: Mr. Seddiqi! Could you tell us how many types of Children Abuse are there?

Answer: Thank you. First of all, I would like to offer my warm greetings to all my countrymen and women. In respond to your question, I must say: any intended and appalling action which impacts the body, soul and mind of the children negatively is called Children Abuse. Based on the researches done, there are three types of Abuse of Children common in Afghanistan. These are: Corporal Abuse, Sexual Abuse and Spiritual or Emotional Abuse of Children.

Question: Mr. Mukhtar! In your opinion, what are the causes of Children Abuse?

Answer: There are several causes of Children Abuse and they vary in every society. Speaking in particular about our society, family behavior, poverty, illiteracy, disobedience from law, weakness of Executive Bodies of the government, existence of illegal and powerful hooligans, war and insecurity are some of the causes of Children Abuse. Poverty, Absence of Law and Illiteracy are the main factors for these abuses. This means that when these three factors dominate a society, problems such as Abuse of Children arise in that society.

Question: Mr. Sediqi! How do you observe the future of those children who are abused?

Answer: These children will not trust anyone of elders in the future because they will conceive all elders are the same that is; they rape children and/or misusing them. Also, these children will not feel comfortable and they will be scared while asleep. In addition, this illegal action will have bad impact over their education. Moreover, they will be mentally disturbed by this illegal action and they will worry about their life, that is, what will happen to them? Maybe they will be abused by someone again! There might be some children who may even commit suicide or become drug addicted.

Question: Mr. Yousef! What do you think about those children who are influenced by this illegal action, that is, they became victims of this action, will they involve in doing similar action in the future?

Answer: We will divide these children into two categories. There will be some children who will grow up in the society with an assumption of getting avenge. This means that when these children were used badly during their childhood such as they were raped or they were used for trafficking and other illegal purposes and no one has defended their rights, now that they are young, they would like to avenge and thus, they create irregularities in the society. In the second category, there might be some children who will not grow up physically and mentally which in terms will be another disaster in the society.

Question: Mr. Yousefi! Since you are working in Child Support Division of the Independent Human Rights Commission, could you tell us which category of children are abused quickly?

Answer: From social point of view, all children are subject to abuse due to their weak mentality and absence of knowledge, whereas, in particular those children who work on streets to support their families and/or their families are faced with great economical problems and children tend to do anything to support their families are more exposed to abusing.

Question: Mr. Yousefi! If these children are not healed quickly, what will be the outcome in the future for them?

Answer: The treatment of these children is not easy since most of these children are suffering from psychological problems and there aren’t specialists in this particular field who can treat them and who can be trusted by these children. These children have lost confidence over people, that is, they don’t trust people and they are scared of them. Since children are the future makers, if they are not cured, they will grow up mentally weak and avenging in the future.

Question: Mr. Mukhtar! In your opinion, what measure should be taken to ensure such actions are avoided and children are protected against being abused?

Answer: Although the government is responsible for the prevention of such illegal actions, it is the main responsibility of the families to make great efforts in the education of their children and provide awareness to their children about such actions. The Ministry of Information and Culture should provide awareness to the families through media about the subject issue. From Islamic ideology, everyone is responsible for their society, that is, they have to prevent their society from bad and unlawful deeds/actions and lead it towards development.

Question: Mr. Sediqi! What kind of punishment has the law predicted for those people who are abusing children?

Answer: In the law it has been stated that anyone who has been found to have annoyed a child/children, should be punished. Meanwhile, the law states that the government is responsible for protecting the lives of the families and children. Based on the law for the punishment of smuggling and trafficking crimes, anyone who leaves a child in a place not suitable for dwelling, will be subject to minimum imprisonment. In another article of this law, it states that anyone who replaces two newly born children with each other through any means should be punished to 8 years imprisonment which is a long term imprisonment. Also, anyone who has abused a child and the child has committed suicide or has become handicapped or incapable will be subject to lifetime imprisonment. In short, various topics have been stated very clearly in the laws pertaining to this issue, but unfortunately, they are not being implemented.

Question: Mr. Yousef! As Mr. Sediqi mentioned that the law is not being implemented. In your opinion, if the law is not implemented on criminals, won’t this case and similar other cases increase?

Answer:  Certainly it will. When a criminal is not punished by the law, another person having less knowledge will perform the same deed and will not abide the law. It is regretting that those who are responsible for implementing the law don’t think about their responsibilities. Meanwhile, there are criminals who are being supported by the government and/or are powerful and the judicial bodies are unable to punish them. Lack of punishment results in increasing the quantity of crimes and it will be eventually very difficult to stop these crimes.

Question: Thank you all. We talked about various causes of Children Abuse, but now I would like to ask you what can we do to assist those children who have been abused so they forget the incident and start a normal life?

Answer: Mr. Awrang Mukhtar: In my opinion, the best way we can assist these children is to provide them proper guidance and eliminate the factors annoying these children.

Answer: Mr. Engineer Mohammad Yousef: if the economical problems of the families of these children are solved and if proper treatment of these children is done and the ground for their education is paved, they will revert back to their normal life.

Answer: Mr. Mohammad Bilal Sediqi:  In my opinion, when the law is implemented in a proper manner and the criminals are punished and also, when parents pay more attention to their children, children will grow up nicely. Sometimes we hear parents are worried about their child and they say their child is calm and they observe changes in his/her actions/deeds. The fact is their child has been abused by someone, so if more attention is paid to children by their parents, children will grow up properly and start their routine life.