The Hindu, Sunday Magazine, July 20, 2014
AFP
Children flee from the war zone. Photo: AFP
In this escalation of hostilities in one of
the world’s most volatile of regions, this nameless boy, and thousands
of children like him, force us to face the ugly truth — that wars kill
children, not a few, but millions. They wound children. And they leave
them bereft and scarred for life.
Earlier this
month, the United Nations released its annual report on children and
armed conflict. It makes depressing reading. It documents the
ever-expanding arena of war and conflict, between and within countries.
It states that armed conflict has ‘a disproportionate impact on
children’ and that indiscriminate attacks on civilian areas as well as
the use of terror tactics was taking a worrying toll on children.
The
report also reminds us that despite campaigns to stop using children,
national armies and armed groups continue to recruit young children. The
UN report says that last year, children were used in 23 conflict
situations around the world. It gives a long list of countries where
this is happening and specifically names 51 armed groups that continue
to use children.
Apart from Palestine, almost every
day we are reminded about what war and conflict do to children. Remember
the 223 schoolgirls in northeast Nigeria abducted by the armed rebel
group Boko Haram? It is now three months and they have still not been
released. On July 13, the leader of the group released a video where he
mocked the efforts of people like the brave Pakistani girl Malala
Yousafzai to negotiate their release. What is happening to these girls?
Will they ever return? And if they do, will they be able to deal with
what they have been through?
The UN report also gives
us a glimpse of this aspect of war and children, that of sexual
violence that boys and girls face. We do not know what is happening to
those girls in Nigeria. What is already documented is the violence that
children are facing in places like Syria, where there appears no end to
the war. The UN report mentions that apart from repeated sexual
harassment of women and girls at government checkpoints, there are
reports of the abduction of young women and girls in groups at
checkpoints. These girls are then released a few days later and sent
back to their villages, thereby ‘intentionally exposing them as victims
of rape and subjecting them to rejection by their families.’
Children
are killed, kidnapped, forced to fight. But apart from that, in
on-going conflicts, such as the situation between Palestine and Israel,
they live under the daily cloud of violence, where the ordinary routine
of daily life like going to school become impossible.
Here
is a quote from the UN report about the situation in the West Bank last
year. Change the year to 2014, and you will get a sense of what has
become a frequent, almost permanent, state of affairs in Palestine:
“Fifty-eight education-related incidents affecting 11,935 children were
reported in the West Bank, resulting in damage to school facilities,
interruption of classes and injury to children. Forty-one incidents
involved Israeli security forces operations near or inside schools,
forced entry without forewarning, the firing of tear gas canisters and
sound bombs into school yards and, in some cases, structural damage to
schools. In 15 of the incidents, Israeli security forces fired tear gas
canisters into schools run by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency
for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), some during class
hours, without forewarning. In a majority of instances, schoolchildren
and teachers were delayed or prevented from going to school owing to
checkpoints, areas closed for military operations or exercises, military
patrols in front of schools and preventive closures by the Israel
Defense Forces. In 32 cases, teachers and children were arrested inside
the school, at checkpoints or on their way to school.”
Like
that boy in the photograph, generations of young children in Palestine
and elsewhere do not know what it is like to simply go to school, to
study, to dream of a better future.
(To read the original, click here.)
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