AFP: Afghan children are being recruited as suicide bombers, drawn into the military and used for sex by armed groups, a senior official with the UN children's agency said on Sunday. But the conflict means that children in more than 60% of the country cannot not be reached by Unicef workers, the agency's deputy executive director Hilde F Johnson said on a visit to Kabul.      more...

BBC: Although millions of Afghan children have gone back to school since the fall of the Taliban, full time education remains a distant dream for many. Continuing poverty means many children, including some as young as six, are forced to work to help their families. Twelve-year-old Izatullah was pushing a cart containing heavy sacks of flour. "I take this load to another shopkeeper. They will give me 10 or 20 Afghanis (21 pence or 42pence). I am poor, I don't have bread. My father is an old man. I earn our living," he said.      more...

Independent.co.uk: There is a little girl in the Meir Wais hospital with livid scars and dead skin across her face, an obscene map of brown and pink tissue. Then there is another girl, a beautiful child, Khorea Horay, grimacing in pain, her leg amputated, her life destroyed after her foot was torn to pieces. In another ward, two girls lie on their backs, a tent above their limbs. One has lost an arm, another – a 16-year-old – a leg. The black turbans are everywhere. So are the blue burkhas which we Westerners confidently – stupidly – believed would vanish from Afghan society.      more...

PAN (Translated by RAWA): In the common border of Torkham between Pakistan and Afghanistan about 4000 children engage in harsh work everyday. Besides being beaten by the border patrols of Pakistan they are also imprisoned. Rana, a 12-year old girl belonging to the Sarkhrud District of Ningarhar province, told PAN on 20 November that her father has Hepatitis and she is forced to work in Torkham. She added that everyday she has to bring a small bag of flour from the other side of the border to earn 10 rupees.      more...

PAN: Unknown armed men kidnapped three students of two high schools students in Baraki Barak district of Logar province, on Wednesday. Deputy Director of Logar province, Mohammad Yasin Ahmadi told Pajhwok Afghan News that the students of two different high schools in the district were residents of Chalozai village.      more...

Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty: Afghan education authorities say they are facing a difficult task of convincing parents to send their daughters to school as attacks on female students have increased in recent months. Three girls sustained severe burns in the southern town of Kandahar earlier in the week when unknown men sprayed acid on up to 15 girls. One of the girls might permanently lose her sight.      more...

BBC News: Attackers in Afghanistan have sprayed acid in the faces of at least 15 girls near a school in Kandahar, police say. They say the attack happened shortly before at least six people were killed in a bomb blast near a government building in the city.      more...

IRIN: There are at least 200,000 children in Afghanistan living with permanent disability (physical, sensory and/or mental impairment), according to a 2005 survey by Handicap International - a non-governmental organisation supporting people with disability. Three decades of conflict have left the country strewn with landmines and other explosive remnants of war which kill and/or maim about 60 people, mostly children, each month, the International Committee of the Red Cross has reported.      more...

The Sunday Times: Nobody seriously thinks the Taliban could take Kabul. The capital is surrounded by mountains, has only a few routes in and remained almost untouched during the Russian occupation. Afghanistan has more than 71,000 foreign troops under the leadership of Nato and the US, neither of which can contemplate defeat. It is hard to find any Afghan families who hanker after a Taliban regime that banned everything from girls’ schools to television and regarded public amputations and executions as entertainment. However, the fear among Kabulis is palpable. “There is a sense of dread of return to the dark days of the past,” said a western diplomat.      more...

IRIN: More than 600 primary, secondary and high schools are closed, mostly in the volatile southern provinces, because of prevalent insecurity and attacks on formal education, the MoE said. Consequently, more than 300,000 students have been deprived of an education in 12 provinces, according to MoE officials.      more...

AHN: Suspected Taliban militants "punished" a schoolteacher for working for the government by dragging him out of a mosque and cutting off his ears in Afghanistan. Zabul provincial education chief Mohammad Nabi Khushal said the armed rebels barged into the mosque while worshippers were at a late night prayer, and took another dozen people and beat them up on similar chargers.      more...

PAN (Translated by RAWA): In 35 schools of Sheikh Ali district of Parwan province almost half of 8000 students are forced in hard labor such as planting and harvesting wheat and potatoes, collecting harvested beans and irrigating the land.      more...

PAN: A female teacher along with her two children was kidnapped and missing since two weeks with no information of their whereabouts in the province of Farah.      more...

The Canadian Press: Girls as young as 11 are considered just old enough for a husband. Their parents collect lucrative $10,000 dowries from wealthy grooms-to-be, and these pre-teens are sent off to become housewives and start raising families. Last year 60 Kandahar girls sought to escape their fate through suicide, provincial officials say. Like Sher, many wound up as hospital burn victims after dousing themselves with gasoline and setting themselves ablaze.      more...

The National: Low salaries are forcing many of Afghanistan’s teachers to take on second jobs so they can feed their families. Despite promises that their wages would be increased, schoolteachers in Kabul said there have been few improvements since the US-led invasion in 2001.      more...

PAN: More than six million children in the country face problems such as smuggling, abduction, performing harsh jobs and get no education. He said that all governmental organizations should pay serious attention to administer justice for children, make education available, make health services accessible, make better their financial conditions and prevent the smuggling of children.      more...

PAN: Four girls' schools are about to close down their operations due to decrease in number of students and staffers following threatening pamphlets issued by Taliban in the southern Ghazni province.      more...

Al Jazeera: Al Jazeera has discovered that thousands of children, some as young as aged four, are being forced to work in brick factories in Afghanistan. In the Sokhrod district in the east of the country, which is well known for producing bricks, there are about 38 factories and about 2,200 children are believed to be working in them.      more...

Mail Online: A teacher was shot to death in northern Afghanistan after he gave a speech condemning suicide bombings, it was revealed today. e spoke at a gathering of about 700 people, including the Kunduz governor, and was on his way home when he was killed, Khair Mohammad Subat said.      more...

PAN: A demonstration staged by hundreds of school students demanding pay raise for their teachers turned violent as they hurled stones at police and torched 45 vehicles here on Saturday.      more...

PAN: Hundreds of teachers of 15 schools in Zaranj city capital of western Nimroz province went on protest on Saturday over the low salary and non-payment since last three months. Thousands of students were waiting in classes; however the teachers did not attend the classes.      more...

Reuters: Half of Afghan children are still not going to school and the biggest group missing out on an education are girls, the United Nations said on Monday."We still have 1.2 million girls of school age who do not have access to school in this country," Catherine Mbengue, head of UNICEF in Afghanistan, told the news conference.      more...

Middle East Times: During the previous year, an estimated 434,000 Afghans used hashish, 130,000 used opium and 41,000 used heroin, according to the UNODC. Some agencies report higher numbers, but this may be due to their failure to adjust the population base. While the population of Afghanistan is officially listed as 31.8 million, the UNODC figures are based on the figure of 23.8 million people who currently live in Afghanistan. The other 8 million, including refugees in Pakistan and Iran, live outside of Afghanistan.      more...

IRIN News: Over 2,200 children are working long hours in dozens of brick-making factories in Nangarhar Province, eastern Afghanistan, to pay off their families' debts, a survey by the Child Action Protection Network (CAPN), an Afghan body, has found.      more...

PAN: A newly-constructed middle school building was blown up by unidentified miscreants in the southeastern Khost province late Wednesday night, officials said on Thursday.      more...

IRIN News: Abdul Samad was 17 when he lost his legs in a landmine explosion in Helmand Province in 1998. He wanted to commit suicide when he first realised his disability, but his family kept him alive. Nine years later, although he has five children, he thinks his problems have only mounted. "My children are also deprived of a happy life because of my disability," he said.      more...

IRIN News: Razmi Khan, 12, was once the most outstanding student in his class, but is unable to go to school. He was badly wounded by a missile as he walked to a mosque in Nader Shah Kot District in the southeastern province of Khost on 17 November. He was taken to a local hospital where surgeons amputated his left leg to save his life.      more...

AFP: Afghanistan is fifth last on a global index of human development, according to a report released Sunday, despite billions of dollars in aid and help since the fall of the Taliban regime in 2001.      more...

ReliefWeb: In Afghanistan, "the justice system must be rebuilt in a way that bridges modern and traditional justice institutions, protects citizens' rights and strengthens rule of law, a pivotal step in Afghanistan's march to successful political transition and development." This is a key recommendation of the Afghanistan National Human Development Report 2007, unveiled here today.      more...

Pajhwok Afghan News: Unidentified miscreants burnt a middle school in Balkh district of the northern Balkh province Saturday night, police said. Balkh police chief, told Pajhwok Afghan News on Sunday the tented school, where 1,200 boys and girls were studying, was set on fire in the midnight.      more...

Turkish Press: Nearly 400 schools in Afghanistan will remain closed when the school year starts next week because of violence linked to the Taliban-led insurgency, education officials said Saturday.      more...

The New York Times: With their teacher absent, 10 students were allowed to leave school early. These were the girls the gunmen saw first, 10 easy targets walking hand-in-hand through the blue metal gate and on to the winding dirt road.      more...

IRIN News: LOGAR - On 12 June two gunmen on a motorcycle opened fire on a crowd of female students coming out of high school in the central province of Logar. Three schoolgirls were killed and five wounded. Bilqees' 13-year-old daughter, Shukria, was one of the three killed. The bereaved mother gave IRIN an account of the day her daughter was killed.      more...

Reuters: Gunmen riding on a motorbike fired at girls outside a school in Afghanistan on Tuesday, killing two and wounding six, authorities said. The attack took place in Logar province, south of the capital, Kabul, at the end of the school day. The attackers fled, they said.      more...

IRIN News: Abdul Kabir, not his real name, left his home in Afghanistan's southern Urozgan province to work for a relative and attend school in neighbouring Kandahar province. Six months later, the 12-year-old found himself in a juvenile prison after being sexually abused.      more...

IRIN, UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs: Jamila Niyazi has received several death threats as principal of Lashkar Gah girls’ high school in the southern Afghan province of Helmand. Niyazi, who oversees 7,000 girls, is a target for ultra-conservative elements, including Taliban insurgents, who use propaganda, coercion and violence to spread their influence.      more...

The Hindustan Times: Insurgents burned down a primary school in southeastern Afghanistan, police said on Wednesday, in the second such attack this year targeting the country's struggling education system.      more...

MainStreetNews.Com: Madison County native Doris Aldrich will cover her head again next month and go to Afghanistan. She'll step off the plane in Kabul and ride past the starving and begging children with hands blackened by the cold. She'll feel that hurt inside that comes with witnessing suffering on a grand scale.      more...

IRIN: Ahmad Wali, 9, is combing the rubbish dump for soda cans to sell as a way to support his 11-member family in the Afghan capital, Kabul. Thousands of children work the streets to help their households through the harsh winter.      more...

Pajhwok Afghan News: Insecurity and intimidation by gunmen kept some 50,000 school-age children away from continuing their education during the past year in the southern province of Ghazni, officials say.      more...