WUNRN
LANDMINES - HUMAN DESTRUCTION -
INTERNATIONAL TREATY - AFGHANISTAN GIRLS KILLED
Landmines - Human Rights Watch
Antipersonnel landmines are indiscriminate weapons that have killed and maimed primarily civilians. The weapon cannot distinguish between a soldier during conflict and a civilian stumbling upon one even decades later. The 1997 Mine Ban Treaty comprehensively bans the use, production, stockpiling, and transfer of antipersonnel mines, and requires states to destroy their stockpiles within four years and to clear all mined areas within 10 years. The treaty also contains provisions to assist landmine survivors and to support mine risk education programs. in achieving a mine-free world.
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Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of Anti-Personnel Mines and on Their Destruction
Treaty Text: http://www.icbl.org/index.php/icbl/Treaty/MBT/Treaty-Text-in-Many-Languages/English
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The 1997 Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of Anti-Personnel Mines and on their Destruction (Mine Ban Treaty) was open for signature from 3 December 1997 until its entry into force on 1 March 1999. Now that the treaty has entered into force, states may no longer sign it, rather they may become bound without signature through a one step procedure known as accession. According to Article 16 (2), the treaty is open for accession by any state that has not signed.
|
States Parties |
Ratification or Accession |
Entry into Force |
Stockpile Destruction Deadline
if Applicable |
Mine Clearance Deadline if
Applicable |
|
Afghanistan
|
11-Sep-02
|
1-Mar-03
|
completed
|
1-Mar-13 |
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AFGHANISTAN - GIRLS KILLED IN
LANDMINE BLAST
December 17, 2012 - At least nine young girls have been killed and three more injured in a landmine explosion in eastern Afghanistan, officials say.
The girls were collecting firewood when one of them hit the mine with an axe, a provincial official said. Earlier reports said 10 girls were killed.
It is unclear if the mine was recent or one left over from a previous conflict.
Meanwhile at least one person has been killed in an explosion on the outskirts of the capital, Kabul.
Several more were injured in the blast, which took place on the Jalalabad road, home to many Nato bases and compounds housing international staff.
Police said the explosion happened near the offices of an international construction company, but it is unclear what the target was.
The Taliban say they carried the attack, adding that a suicide bomber drove into the compound of a US-based engineering and construction company.
Foreigners are among the wounded.
Volatile district
There are conflicting reports as to whether the landmine in Nangarhar was planted by insurgents or was left over from Afghanistan's many decades of conflict. Such unexploded mines are still commonly found in rural areas.
One spokesman said that this was a recent landmine, but another official said it dated from the Soviet occupation of the 1980s. Another landmine was found nearby.
"Most of those killed were aspiring engineers, doctors and teachers. Only four bodies can be recognised," a tribal elder told the BBC's Bilal Sarwary in Kabul.
"This area was used during fighting against Russians but the Taliban and Afghan government are also fighting in this area," the elder said.
The mine blew up near Dawlatzai village, in Nangarhar's Chaperhar district.
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Nobel Women's Initiative - http://nobelwomensinitiative.org/meet-the-laureates/jody-williams/
Jody Williams received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1997 for her work to ban landmines through the International Campaign to Ban Landmines, which shared the Peace Prize with her that year.
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