Afghanistan - UNICEF Visit to Help Needs of Women & Children

Afghanistan: UNICEF official calls for special focus on girls’ education

23 March 2006 – With a women’s literacy rate of just 14 per cent in Afghanistan, a senior United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) official has called on all Afghan families to give priority to education for the sake of long-term progress, with a special focus on girls who have either been prevented or discouraged from attending school.

Speaking at a special event to mark the start of a new academic year yesterday in the shadow of a huge sandstone arch that housed one of the famous Bamiyan Buddhas in central Afghanistan prior to its destruction by the Taliban, UNICEF Deputy Executive Director Rima Salah stressed the importance of universal education to ensure growth and development.

“Today is an important day not just because it is the beginning of another year of opportunity for students. Today is another step towards the reconstruction of Afghanistan, towards a country that puts women and girls first,” Ms. Salah, who is on a week-long visit to the war-torn country, added.

While more than 5 million children are expected to attend classes across Afghanistan this year, UNICEF estimates that 1.2 million primary school-age girls will stay at home. Girls’ primary school attendance is just 40 per cent nationally, while the country also reports one of the world’s highest maternal mortality ratios and a women’s literacy rate of just 14 per cent.

Without more attention paid to these issues, Ms. Salah warned, Afghanistan’s efforts to attain the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), aimed at remedying a host of socio-economic ills, could be thwarted.

Visiting Surkdaar School in Bamiyan, she met girls attending classes for the first time. Distributing UNICEF-supported classroom materials, and spoke with female teachers who had benefited from UNICEF-backed training programmes, calling the lack of such teachers another obstacle to girls’ enrolment in Afghanistan.

In a reference to the recent spate of attacks against some schools in the country, Ms. Salah told assembled teachers, parents and children: “There is a minority that does not value education as much as you. They will not succeed in holding you back. With your continued determination to provide education for every child, Afghanistan will continue to grow stronger.”

Senior UNICEF official visits Afghanistan to help meet needs of women, children

20 March 2006 – United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) Deputy Executive Director Rima Salah has begun a week-long visit to Afghanistan in a bid to draw global attention to the progress being made for the country’s women and children while highlighting unmet needs in areas of health, education and protection.

The figures are still stark. Less than half of primary school age girls attend classes, while a quarter of primary school age children undertake some form of work, and an estimated one-third of women are married before the age of 18. Some 50 women die every day due to obstetric complications. An estimated 600 children under the age of five die every day in Afghanistan, mostly due to preventable illnesses.

Ms. Salah’s visit coincides with the start of a new academic year, when up to 5 million children are expected to return to classrooms. She will see first hand efforts made by the Afghan Government, UNICEF and other partners to increase school enrolment, visit maternal health programmes, and discuss broader child protection policies.

Ms. Salah, who began her visit yesterday, will encourage renewed investment in development programmes for women and children and draw upon the benchmarks for health and education set out in the Afghan Compact adopted in London in January, a multi-billion dollar blueprint for partnership between the Government and the international community to bolster security, economic development and counter-narcotics efforts.

The Compact calls for a primary school enrolment rate for girls of 60 per cent, a reduction of maternal mortality by 15 per cent, and full immunization coverage for infants under-5 for vaccine-preventable diseases, reducing mortality rates by 20 per cent, by the end of 2010.

With a recognized need to reduce disparities throughout the country, Ms. Salah will spend the first part of her visit in the provinces of Bamyan and Balkh before returning to Kabul, the capital.

_______________________________________________________________________________