IN the conflict zones of Asia and Africa, particularly in Syria, Palestine, Iraq, Lebanon, Afghanistan and some African countries children have been endangered from decades old wars, tribal violence and bloodshed. Their plight captures global headlines again and again but there is hardly any respite in sight. It is heartening to note that UNESCO has taken an initiative to save as many children as possible from falling victim to a lost generation and launched a project to send the war children to school to prevent them from being spoiled. Needless to say, it is a commendable step but it is not enough. There must be more global attention, involvement of more organizations and resources to provide schooling facilities to such large number of displaced children before they got spoiled.
It appears that a whole generation of war zone children is risking to stay out of schools as their families have been forced to leave their homes. This is extremely difficult time for these families to live in temporary shelters and integrate in new societies. A recent report shows Afghan refugees who had taken long time shelters in Pakistan and now got back to their motherland are finding it difficult to catch up with life on the fringe of Kabul. In many war torn areas, particularly in Kurdish regions in Iraq, schools are serving as shelters for displaced families while teaching remained shut. Schools in Gaza sheltered people during prolonged Israeli air raids. Syrian displaced people in refugee camps in Jordan and Lebanon are similarly risking the future of their children without education. Their row of tents in open air in the fringe of Amman the inhuman living condition of these homeless people and how the bonny children are forced out of schools.
In most tribal war torn African militia leaders are using children as soldiers to fight fratricidal wars. Moreover children are falling victims to human trafficking in war torn countries only to become part of a spoiled generation even before budding of their life. In Bangladesh the number of school-out children and their exploitation as child labour is quite big; but the saga of the global war children is going to be as horrific and merciless as it could be. What is highly anticipated is that most displaced children would become part of global diaspora and the drowning migrants in the Mediterranean or in Andaman Sea in East Asia are the manifestations of such a growing diaspora let lose by wars and socio-political tension in those regions.
People here tend to believe that war and bloodshed are destroying many nations where the people have hardly any role to chart out their destiny. Despotic leaders, warmongers and plunderers of national wealth from home and abroad are putting these countries on flame forcing common people to die and abandon their homes for safety. Younger generation is getting lost. Only proper distribution of national wealth and people’s democratic right to have a say on their future may only change the situation. But the question is who would listen to it.
