Interview: UNICEF expresses concern over children education, malnutrition in Afghanistan - World - Tibetol

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Interview: UNICEF expresses concern over children education, malnutrition in Afghanistan
By:Xinhua
update:November 20,2017


Khodr also expressed concern over the quality of teaching for children and their learning levels.
 
The education situation has been improved in Afghanistan since the collapse of Taliban regime in late 2001.
 
According to Afghan Presidential Palace, less than 1 million children had access to education during Taliban reign, which collapsed in late 2001, but the number has soared to more than 9.5 million children with 40 percent of them girls attending 15,000 schools across the country in 2016.
 
However, the country still needs to do more to facilitate all children to get access to school.
 
Another challenging issue for children in Afghanistan is malnutrition, said the UNICEF representative.
 
Khodr said there are 600,000 children who are severely malnourished in Afghanistan, describing the situation as "severe acute malnutrition."
 
She said the rate of stunting or chronic malnutrition in Afghanistan is 41 percent; not only does this mean that children are short for their age, but more importantly it means that the mental and intellectual capacity of these children once they become adults is stunted too.
 
Noting that the malnutrition problem has a direct economic impact, she said investing in nutrition is investing in the country's economic growth.
 
She also noted that Afghanistan is one of the three countries in the world still fighting the crippling polio disease.
 
The official said polio is a disease that affects children all their life, adding that so far this year, 10 polio cases have been registered in the country, mostly in the southern Kandahar, Helmand and eastern Nangarhar provinces. Access to all the districts is difficult due to security reasons.
 
"And there are only 43 percent of children in Afghanistan under one year of age who are fully immunized against the five vaccine preventable infectious diseases, meaning they have received all the vaccines," she said. This has a direct impact on immunity of children and therefore on polio.
 
The official has also expressed concern over living conditions of street children, saying the children may easily fall victim of the war and smugglers and also may be recruited by fighting forces.
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