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CNN Saturday Morning News
Interview With Paolo Galli
Aired December 22, 2001 - 11:40 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: Music isn't the only thing Afghan children have been missing out on. They also lack more important things like education and health care.
An entire generation has known nothing but war and they must now be incorporated into the new Afghanistan. To find out how that might happen, we turn to Paolo Galli of the U.N. Office for Children in Armed Conflict.
Paolo, good to see you.
PAOLO GALLI, UNITED NATIONS: Good to see you.
PHILLIPS: Well, let's put this in perspective for a minute. When we are talking about a new Afghanistan, what percentage of the population will be children?
GALLI: About 50 percent of Afghanistan's population is less than 18 years old.
PHILLIPS: Wow, that's a tremendous amount. So let's talk about then the specific humanitarian needs that need to be addressed urgently. That's a large, very large number.
GALLI: Yes, of course the needs that have to be addressed are multiple, and the immediate needs that have to be addressed are, of course, humanitarian needs in view of the approaching winter, in view of the fact that there has been a three-year drought.
But of course there will be longer term needs once the humanitarian crisis is over. And once the new Afghan leadership takes hold of its new responsibilities and the international community needs, and what I mean is rebuilding health care assistance, rebuilding schools, providing jobs for young people so that they don't -- so that they have other alternatives other than going back and fighting.
So there are a lot of needs that have to be addressed, and this is a big challenge for the new Afghan leadership and, of course, the international community.
PHILLIPS: Yes, and when you think of 50 percent are children, education is huge because these are the future leaders of the new Afghanistan. GALLI: That's correct. Education is the primary priority. We can not stress that enough. It is through the educational system that the future leaders of Afghanistan are going to be formed, the ones who are going to have to shoulder the reconstruction of the country.
It is also through the educational system that Afghans will have the tools to bring Afghanistan into the 21st Century in terms of integrating Afghanistan into the global economy, a knowledge-based global economy.
So this has to be the number one priority, one of the top priorities of the new administration, to make sure that the curriculum provides the types of skills. But through the curriculum, you also can introduce notions such as national reconciliation, being tolerant to different ethnic groups.
So the educational system has many, many, many functions.
PHILLIPS: Yes, very important. I was thinking of tolerance and diversity and acceptance and it's huge. That's what they learn in school.
GALLI: That's right.
PHILLIPS: Now the girls. Let's talk about the girls. Is this a primary priority because these are -- I mean the women have had absolutely no laws to protect them.
So I would see an immediate concern of laws needing to be implemented for the sake of rights.
GALLI: Absolutely, both women and girls have had it very, very rough. As you know, women were not allowed to work. They were not allowed to go out in public, unless they were accompanied by a relative.
They were physically abused. Girls were not allowed to study, to go to school. About one -- for example, one-eighth of primary school girls have had any sort of access to primary schools.
So another very important priority will be to make sure that these past wrongs are made right, that women are brought back into the workforce, that women are given important responsibilities in government and in other areas of society, and that women are and that girls are educated, because they in the end are going to be the nurturers of future Afghans, both boys and girls.
PHILLIPS: And Paolo, let's talk about the psychological effects because the first thing I'm thinking, these children are growing up. All they've seen is war and poverty and that they have no rights.
Has there been any research done to show how hard it would be for them to understand anything else?
GALLI: I think that we don't know the extent of the gruesome and horrific effects that these two decades of war have had on children, particularly in Afghanistan.
But we do know from experiences in other conflict countries, and also from having observed children and young people in Afghanistan, that they have an enormous amount of resiliency. And your piece earlier showed just that.
What we know, what we do know is that if you do provide for a loving, nurturing environment, if you do provide for education and for the needs of children, that they are able to shrug it off and move along. I mean they are just extremely resilient.
For some particular categories of children, such as child soldiers and others, there you really have to be very, very focused in the types of programs that you do.
Child soldiers are both victims and perpetrators of violence sometimes. So you have to really be very careful with them. And, of course, there are those who have been traumatized psychologically, perhaps even beyond any type of remedy. And so for them, you have to design appropriate psycho-social programs to deal with their problems.
PHILLIPS: Paolo Galli, U.N. Office for Children in Armed Conflict, thanks for sharing your perspective with us this morning, an important subject.
GALLI: Thank you very much.
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