LONDON (AlertNet) Â? Aid workers have dismissed a top NATO envoyÂ?s comment that children are probably safer in Kabul than London or New York as "incredibly insensitive" and "potentially damaging".
Mark Sedwill's remarks, made during an interview on the BBC's "Newsround" programme, were rejected as misleading by aid groups citing grim statistics on infant mortality and child casualties due to the worsening conflict between U.S.-led NATO forces and the Taliban.
Children living in the Afghan capital had told Newsround, a British current affairs programme aimed at children, that they felt unsafe on the streets because of the risk of bombs. But Sedwill dismissed their fears.
"Here and in Kabul and the other big cities, actually, there are very few of those bombs," he said.
"The children are probably safer here than they would be in London, New York or Glasgow or many other cities," he said, adding: "It's a very family-orientated society, so it is a little bit like a city of villages."
Aid groups were quick to point out that Afghanistan is one of the most dangerous places for children and that it has the worldÂ?s highest infant mortality rate with one in five children not making it to their fifth birthday.
Ashley Jackson, head of policy for Oxfam in Afghanistan, said each hour, 30 children die largely because of malnutrition, diarrhoea or diseases like pneumonia and tuberculosis. She also cited a government survey that showed nearly a quarter of children displayed some sign of psychiatric disturbance mainly attributed to the trauma of the conflict.
"It's a very tone-deaf comment when you look at the absolute tragedy that most Afghans face in their lives. The conflict's getting worse, civilian casualties are skyrocketing and certainly maternal and child mortality beyond the conflict make deaths from the conflict look miniscule," Jackson said.
"At this stage in the conflict I think Afghans are already very distrustful and very angry towards the international community and comments like this certainly don't help. They don't show a lot of empathy and I think they're incredibly insensitive," she told AlertNet by telephone from Kabul.
Sedwill, NATO's top civilian envoy in Afghanistan, later sought to clarify his remarks, saying he had been trying to explain that violence was the same in each part of the country and that, in cities like Kabul, it was comparable to what many Western children might see.
"Any comment you have to clarify obviously wasn't very well put and the comparison I made with Western cities distracted attention from the important point I was seeking to make," Sedwill said in a statement later on Monday.
ONE OF MOST DANGEROUS PLACES FOR CHILDREN
Afghanistan was named in a November 2009 report by the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) as the most dangerous country to be born in.
Forty-three percent of the country was virtually off-limits to aid agencies due to poor security, the report said, making it difficult to carry out health campaigns for children.
Another U.N. report on Afghanistan published in August said 74 children were killed in the first half of this year by homemade bombs or in suicide attacks, an increase of 155 percent for the same period in 2009.
"Clearly children are in a very, very bad position and face a lot of challenges and I think a lot of them would respond to Sedwill by saying 'no, it's not safe in Kabul, we're afraid'," Jackson added.
War Child's campaigns director Nivi Narang was worried about the impact of Sedwill's comments on aid efforts in the country where more than half the population is under the age of 18.
"To give the impression that life's better for children in Afghanistan than in the West is really misleading," Narang said. "It potentially damages humanitarian development efforts. I think a comment like that can make it easy for the international community to ignore what life is really like for children on the ground," she told AlertNet.
War Child has operations in western Afghanistan where it helps children who are forced to work to support their families. Some have lost their families because of the fighting, many face abuse and violence, Narang said.
Many young girls are forced into marriage. Those who run away are considered guilty of "honour crimes" and at risk of being thrown in jail, she added.
Girls have had acid thrown in their faces while walking to school by hardline Islamists who object to female education, which was banned under Taliban rule. Several girls' schools, including some in Kabul, have been hit by mysterious gas poisonings blamed on Islamists.
"The reality is Afghanistan is one of the worst places, the most dangerous places to be a child. Children's rights are being violated every single day," she said, adding that the security situation was deteriorating.
"In the last year, the effect of the elections, the security threats has meant that we've had to sometimes close down or at least adapt our programmes because it's so dangerous. It wasn't like that few years ago. It's definitely getting worse," she added.
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