Generation of war

https://www.icrc.org/en/document/150-years-humanitarian-action-children-war

For the last four decades the Afghan nation has been suffering from devastating wars and bloody conflicts. First the Afghan Jihad that started in the year 1979 created a generation of fundamentalists and extremists in the Afghan society. It even affected its neighbors when religious extremism started importing in the surrounding region. Then we observed the Afghan civil war that started in the 1990s after Soviet withdrawal which destroyed the culture and the fabrics of the Afghan society, this conflict created a rift and friction between different ethnic and racial groups of Afghanistan.

Ethnic divide 

The Tajiks did not like the Pashtuns, the Pashtuns did not like the Hazaras and the Hazara did not like the Uzbeks. The society as a whole fell deep down a dark hole of madness and chaos. Then after the emergence of the Taliban, we saw America's war on terror in 2001. This was the time when we observed the the downfall of the Afghan nation and the Afghan society into rubbles. The superpower started bombing the country which was already war war-torn. 

Youth and violence

Behind all these political strategies and proxy wars of powerful regional and international powers, we often forget the social impacts of the conflict onto the people, especially the children and the young generation. The only fault of these children are that they were born in a conflict zone. The Afghan children and young generation in their 20s have only seen war in their childhood and youth. Even the Afghans in their 30s have only been exposed to bloodshed and violence as they reach towards their middle age. Conflict and war has now been engraved into the minds of the Afghan people and Afghan children. It has been engraved into the culture and the fabrics of the very society.

Cultural Impact of war

The Afghan children have seen so much bloodshed and conflict, they have been witness to such violence in their everyday life that now they have been desensitized of any kind of violence and murder they see. Ammunition and guns has become a crucial part of the Afghan culture which is devastating for grooming children. Unfortunately the youth which is considered to be the future of the nation has now been caught between the clutches of war and extremism. There also have been many incidents of Afghan children being kidnapped by different terrorist groups for recruitment as a member. These innocent children are converted into a bloodthirsty monster, their innocent and fragile minds are brainwashed with extremist ideas of hatred and violence. It is hard for them to come back on the right direction after being taught only destruction from a young age. Another side effect of war in Afghanistan is the increase of pedophilia in the society. "Bachabazi" is a concept of having sexual relations with under age children. Unfortunately this pedophile concept is now part of the Afghan culture and we see this practice in Pakistan's Khyber Pakhtoonkhwa province as well.

PTSD

According to research majority of the Afghan children do not reach the age of nine because in one way or the other the Afghan children die either because of war or the effects of war on the society. Not so long ago a video on social media got viral when a bunch of kids bullied a Syrian refugee kid by shouting at him that the airplanes are coming to bomb, the Syrian kid got so traumatized by hearing about the plane that he hid himself behind a swing in that park. This is the psychological impact of war on children. The Afghan children also suffer from Post-War-Traumatic-Syndrome-Disorder in the same manner the Syrian children and the American soldiers coming home from Iraq and Afghanistan face.

UN statistics on Afghan war

Let me give some of the United Nations statistics on the Afghan children. 46% of children from age 12 to 23 months have not received their basic. 1 in 3 girls are married before they reach the age of 18. 2 in 5 children cannot reach full mental or physical development. 1.3 million children under the age of 5 years need treatment for acute malnutrition. 3.7 million children are ‘out-of-school’ and 60% of them are only girls. Only 19% of females under the age of 15 years are literate. Afghanistan is still fighting polio with 14 cases reported in 2017. These are the side effects of different wars imposed on the Afghan society over the years with children being the final target. The amount of casualties, injured and handicapped children from war are far more devastating than the things I mentioned above as 31,000 civilians have been killed in war related violence from only the year 2001 till now.

The Generation of war

It is Ironic that in the war, which is caused by great powers to obtain their strategic policies and goals the ultimate sufferers are the children, they are the one who are affected the most, they were the ones who should have been gone to schools and should have been taught education but unfortunately they do not get the opportunity to show their real potential as a a future of the society and nation as a whole because they are the generation of war and there's absolutely nothing they can do to change that.