children

TOTAL DEATHS SINCE SEPT 2000:

Israeli children: 123
Palestinian children: 1050

TOTALS FOR 2000:

Israeli children: 0
Palestinian children: 91

Extracts from Afghanistan: the worst place on earth for children to be born and raised

The Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission and UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) recorded 2,777 civilian deaths in 2010, an increase of 15 percent compared with 2009, child casualties increased by 21 percent in the same period. UNAMA confirmed that more civilians were killed in Afghanistan in May 2011 than in any other month since 2007, with 368 conflict-related civilian deaths and 593 civilian injuries. As recorded by monitor Afghanistan has significantly more child casualties from mines/ERW (explosive remnants of war) annually than any other country.

Figures from the United Nations refugee agency (UNHCR) reveal that one in four of all refugees the agency deals with world-wide come from Afghanistan.

Family Environment

It is estimated that there are over 1.6 million orphans in Afghanistan, mainly due to the conflict in Afghanistan. However, lack of accurate data makes predicting the numbers of children and young people orphaned in Afghanistan difficult. Not only are these children deprived of family life, most will not know their date of birth, have no birth certificate and some will have seen their parents killed.

Health and health services

Two thirds of children are chronically malnourished, and among them, thousands suffer from acute malnutrition. The UNDP reports that 16 percent of babies die at birth and 25 percent before their 5th birthday. As reported by UNCIEF Afghanistan has the 2nd highest mortality rate for under-5s with only Chad in Africa having more children die per year before reaching their 5th birthday.14 The World Health Organisations data shows that 82,100 children living in Afghanistan die annually as a result of diarrhoea.

Number of Palestinian children killed as a result of Israeli military and settler presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territories:

2000 94
2001 98
2002 192
2003 130
2004 162
2005 52
2006 124
2007 50
2008 112
2009 315
2010 8
TOTAL 1337

the Obama administration has decided to exempt Yemen and three other countries that use child soldiers from U.S. penalties under the 2008 Child Soldiers Prevention Act.

In a memorandum to Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, President Barack Obama said he had determined that "it is in the national interest of the United States" to waive application of the law to Chad, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Sudan and Yemen. He instructed Clinton to submit the decision to the Congress with a written justification for the move...

Jo Becker, children's rights director at Human Rights Watch, said Obama had supported the legislation when he was in the Senate.

"This is a ground breaking law," she said. "This is the first year it has taken effect and he's undercutting it."

January 2009: Separate investigations conducted by the United Nations, the government of Afghanistan, and the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission concluded 78 to 92 civilians had been killed at Azizabad, the majority of them women and children. For weeks after the incident, the US strongly rejected all three investigations. An initial US military inquiry by the Combined Joint Task Force 101 concluded that no more than five to seven civilians and 30 to 35 Taliban fighters had been killed. In various media interviews, US officials suggested that the villagers were spreading Taliban propaganda.

After the release of video showing significant numbers of civilian dead, and strong criticism from Afghan President Hamid Karzai and the UN, the US announced on September 7 that it would conduct a new investigation led by General Callan...

The investigation summary concluded that the US attack on insurgent forces in Azizabad was "necessary" and "proportional," failing to acknowledge any possible mistakes in US intelligence. It exonerated the US forces who carried out the attack of any wrongdoing without providing a basis for its conclusions, and suggested without evidence that Taliban forces deliberately used civilians as "shields."

"We deeply regret the Pentagon’s decision not to declassify and publish the full report of the Azizabad investigation," HRW