IGCSE

Global Perspectives
Research Paper

Conflict and Peace

Singapore International School@Danang
VN227
Nguyen Hoai Phuong
0007
Introduction

War is a subject that attracts attention from all over the world. One place where there are
many ongoing wars is the Middle East in countries such as Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Due to the political issues and the religious beliefs there, women and children are being
mistreated. According to reporter Arshad Mahmoods research, the most affected countries in the
area are Afghanistan and Iraq. Wars in Afghanistan are getting worse and it affects not only the
environment in general, but childrens lives in particular.

Analyze and Present

It is said by Daniel Toole, the regional director of the UN Childrens Fund (UNICEF),
that Afghanistan today is without a doubt the most dangerous place to be born. (Child Victims
of War, 2014). The consequences of war that children must suffer through every day are
impacting their health and education. War is defined in many different ways; however, based on
the topic of this paper, war is defined as an armed conflict between groups, nations or states.
According to Websters Dictionary, war is a state of open and declared hostile armed conflict
between states or nations, or a period of such conflict. Afghanistan is certainly an example of
the state of armed conflict.
In Afghanistan, for over 20 years since 1978, the number of children who have died from
wars is around 300,000 to 400,000, out of a population of 20 million. From 2001 to present,
children have been kidnapped and sold as terrorists by member of the Northern Alliance to
the US Special Forces for $5,000 each (Noorzoy 2012). The infrastructure for education is also
a major negative on childrens well being. The shortage of qualified teachers, poor facilities and
threats from insurgents have held back educational progress. Moreover, malnutrition and the

abuse of drugs on children have seriously affected the health situation. This will be discussed
later.
Looking at the global perspective, Afghanistan is an unhappy country with poor health
services and scant educational facilities for children. Afghanistan is known for its insurgents.
Fearful Afghans have been fleeing and risking their lives for a better life elsewhere, such as
Europe. However, Afghan children still face dreadful situations in Europe and are often very
vulnerable.
In their home country, they are being abused and mistreated in many ways, such as child
labor, humiliation, sex abuse and physical abuse. Although Afghanistan is a country with rich
mines, it also means that other countries have often invaded in order to take over the mines. As
well, the biggest recent foreign impact on Afghanistan is the United States. After the Al-Qaeda
terrorist attack on September 11, 2001, the U.S. made a decision to take down the Taliban
governments which funded Al-Qaeda. Since then, thousands of children have died from the
fightings between the U.S. and Afghanistan.
Looking locally at the wars occurring in Afghanistan, they have a very strong effect on
children. The most obvious problem is health services. One out of eight Afghan women dies in
childbirth, due to the religious beliefs that girls must marry at a very young age (Child Victims of
War, 2014). This leads to the scarcity of younger generations and human resources in the future.
Therefore, the economy of Afghanistan may crash and the country will fall further into poverty.
According to the website War Child by Letty Thomas:
war destroys industries, jobs and infrastructure. It can put a huge strain on families and
conflict is usually taking place in the poorest countries in the first place. Parents often
cant afford to look after their children and may be forced to keep them at home to look
after siblings, to work instead of going to school, or the children may even end up on the
streets in the most acute cases of poverty.
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(War Child, Letty Thomas)

Afghanistan is a perfect example of why the economy is crashing because of war.
The lack of health facilities and services gives women and children a very small opportunity to
access help. More than half of children under the age of five are malnourished, and
micronutrient deficiencies (particularly iodine and iron) are widespread (Child Victims of War,
2014). Also , numbers of children with severe acute malnutrition has more than tripled from
98,000 in 2003 to 362,317 in 2013 (Child Victims of War, 2014). Due to the lack of nutrients,
the use of opium has spread from adults to children. Adults and children use it to relieve pain
from hunger, sickness, physical and psychological suffering. The Ministry of Counter Narcotics
and U.N. Office in Drugs and Crime found nearly 1 million addicts in Afghanistan of about 30
million people, including 60,000 children under age 15. (Child Victims of War, 2014). The
parents let their children use a little bit of opium every day, as they find it can block away the
pains and hunger. One reason they use opium so much is because of unemployment. Without a
job, these parents cant afford to have a proper meal, therefore, in order to survive, children often
take opium instead of food and eventually they become addicts.
Afghanistan is known to be one of the poorest countries in the world, with some of the highest
rates of land-mine injuries. Professor of paediatrics Z. Ahmed Bhutta in 2002 claimed that over
80% of Afghan children being interviewed showed that they have some kind of psychological
scars from war (NCBI, 2002). Seeing war, and being abused almost every day, has created
permanent psychological scars that children have to suffer from. As children are sensitive and
easily influenced, they dont understand why wars are happening and why people fight, and this
can affect their ability to build relationships with others.

On the educational side, there are 5 million children in Afghanistan that still do not have access
to education and 3 million of them are girls. Primary reasons for the lack of education are the
shortage of qualified teachers and facilities. Because the conditions in Afghanistan are so harsh,
only 11% of secondary-school-age girls goes to grades 7-9 and only 4% go to grades 10-12
(Child Victims of Wars, 2014). Things are changing, however, and according to reporter M.
Siddieq Noorzoy 5 million boys and girls now attend school (Middle East Institute, 2012).
This is a huge step up compared to 2001, when only one million children went to school, with
very few girls. However, schools are not evenly distributed throughout the country. For example,
in the south-east areas where wars are common, very few schools are open, whereas in the north,
there are less insurgents and more children can attend school safely.
Delaram is a seven year-old girl living in Western Afghanistan where her family is one of 300
families living in temporary mud settlements. Clean water, food and health care are a scarce. The
War Child headquarter in Afghanistan has helped Delaram to go to school and provided a chance
to enjoy the innocent pleasures of childhood for a few hours of week. Delaram had eight months
of literacy and numeracy training. She has broadened her perspectives, Delaram wants to have a
job with stable income and be independent. She also doesnt want to get married until shes at
least 20 years old.
Delaram is still going to school and fulfilling her dreams. She hopes to inspire more girls like her
when she grows up. Delarams mother is very happy to see Delaram going to school and getting
an education. She realizes that education is very important for her future. It helps you to earn
respect and changes others attitude in the long run. Delaram is just an example of millions of
other Afghan children. There are even worse cases that havent been noticed.

Possible Scenarios
Due to the political disagreements between Pakistan, U.S. and Afghanistan, women and children
have to pay a disproportionate price for the conflicts. At the moment, they must be the prime
priorities to rebuild Afghanistan, by improving health services, nutrition and education. As
mentioned above, approximately 400,000 children in Afghanistan are malnourished, so it means
that if children and women are not served with enough food and nutrients, the country could fall
further into poverty due to a lack of childbirth, and therefore lack of future human resources.
Now with more than 5 million children, both boys and girls, attending school, the future of
Afghanistan is opening a new door. Children are gaining more knowledge of what is happening
around them, and this can help stop the civil wars and prevent conflicts. Children will understand
that the result of wars is just death, and therefore their knowledge will hopefully created possible
solutions to disagreements other than war. Being aware of their surroundings, children can make
use of the knowledge learned in school to apply in their everyday lives to help have a healthy
community.
One of the greatest effects of war is the way it disrupts and destroys childrens education.
Yet education really is the best weapon against poverty and conflict.
(Letty Thomas, 2014)
By using education, the children of Afghanistan can help build themselves a better future. The
problem is whether or not the Afghanistan government can rebuild the education infrastructure to
satisfy the demand of a larger population and meet modern educational requirements. If in case
the government fails to rebuild, the children will continue to suffer and future human resources
will be scarce, which may later causes an economic crash. By improving the countrys image,
investors and charities will want to give educational funding and scholarships. However, without

a budget, education in Afghanistan will not be able to improve due to the lack of facilities and
qualified teachers.

Formulate Possible Courses of Action

The situation in Afghanistan has gotten to a point where people are starting to leave their homes
to find a better life. Leaving Afghanistan for Europe is a rough journey and the chance of getting
into a foreign country is very small. Countries in Europe should consider having infrastructure
for refugees and giving political asylum for those who are in desperate need. To help children in
Afghanistan, the government must take measures against future wars. These wars threaten oil
supplies, help raise extremist groups and also bring aggressive governments to power. Scholars
of civil wars have identified two ways to permanently end the wars.
The first is to have military assistance. According to the theory of scholars of civil wars, military
assistance must be offered early to be decisive. Outsiders can help unstabilize the military
situation and lead to a quick and decisive victory. Notre Dame Professor Patrick Reegan found
that when aid is offered only to one side, the war ends quicker than those in which both sides
had help (Reegan, 2015). Although having a quick and decisive victory is the fastest way to end
a civil war, it is not inevitably the best way. Unbalanced military levels can lead to high levels of
further violence, which can affect the children even more. After all, the citizens are the ones that
suffer most from wars.
Second, a negotiated settlement could be signed. If a quick military victory doesnt work, then
wars can be brought to an early end with a peace agreement. This solution will likely be
supported by other countries because it stops fighting, reducing the threat of more fighting, and

to prevent taking full control of ones enemy. However, this is difficult to carry out because the
negotiated settlement requires three key conditions: first, the groups must believe that no matter
how long they fight, no one is going to win. They need to see that if they keep on fighting, more
people will die and there will be no victory. Second, the peace agreement must offer reasonable
and sustainable distribution of political power. Once the groups see that there are advantages to
power sharing, it is more likely that they will sign the agreement. Last, all parties must believe
that the terms of the peace agreement will be enforced over time. This is the most important part
of the negotiated settlement because if warring parties do not believe that they have the
protection, there are no reasons for them to sign the agreement (Pollack 2015, p. 34)

Possible Scenarios and Self awareness

It cant be denied that the two biggest consequences of war to Afghan citizens, especially
children, are on their health and education. Children are starving and not getting enough
nutrients. Therefore their immune systems are getting weaker and it is easier for them to catch
diseases and get sick. Thus leads to lack of future human resources and economic crash. There
should be immediate intervene in order to help Afghanistan to have a brighter future.
Being a citizen of a peaceful society, I feel very lucky to have grown up with little needs and
enough care. In my country, there are no wars, and poverty is at very a low rate. Most of the
children are well educated and have access to proper schooling. Personally, I believe that the
higher education a country has, the lower crime it has.

After researching about the children in Afghanistan, I can see that war and poverty is their
biggest problem at the moment. It leads to higher rates of orphans and refugees, as well as
crimes, due to security, low education and health service.
My wish for Afghanistan is that war will end as soon as possible, so that there can be new
government. Thus, the educational system can hopefully be rebuilt and more children can have
access to education. The government should take proper and timely action and focus more on the
children, who are future of Afghanistan.

Conclusion
Wars in Afghanistan are getting worse and it is affecting not only the environment in general, but
childrens lives in particular. Children in Afghanistan are suffering very much from pain and
hunger. Through this research, the researcher found that there must be an intervention in order to
stop the wars and end the suffering. If wars keep happening , neither side will win and the result
will be more deaths and innocent people suffering.

References
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