Poor prospects for Pakistan's Children

Families in Pakistan's embattled northwest are packing up and leaving after Islamist militants started attacking schools.

Pakistani forces killed 52 militants in a massive operation to clear Taliban fighters out of the flashpoint Khyber region on Friday. Militants in the rugged northwest region have been stepping up attacks on supplies to the US and Nato in Afghanistan. Earlier on Friday, a suicide car bomber killed himself and wounded six people at a checkpoint on the Khyber Pass.

But the extremist attacks have had far reaching effects not just for Nato and the US…Nearly 200 schools in the Swat district have been attacked in the past 20 months.

Swat is paralysed by a two-year-long armed insurgency by Taliban militants, who want to impose their brand of Islamic law in the district. The Taliban has banned education for girls and parents of schoolchildren who can afford to leave have gone.

Militants also bombed several schools including boys’ schools, creating a grim future for children and education in the region.

Although the army has moved in to protect the surviving schools against Taliban attacks, parents fear army protected schools will attract more deadly attacks by the militants, endangering the lives of their children.

Destroying the government's education infrastructure is one aspect of the Taliban's campaign to uproot the existing system and replace it with their own.

"In about 20 months or so, we have had 187 of our schools bombed out, of which 121 are girls' schools," Sher Afzal Khan, the district head of the education department told a BBC correspondent.

Another 86 schools cannot be used because they are camps for the army or the Taliban, or they are in combat zones where children and staff cannot go, he said. "Nearly 60,000 students have been affected," says Mr Khan.

Nearly one third of Pakistan's 140 million people live in absolute poverty. Girls face greater risks to survival, are more subject to violence and abuse and have less access to education, proper nutrition and health services. The average literacy level is 49.9% but this breaks down to: 63% for men and: 36% for women according to 2005 figures from the CIA Factbook.

SOS children has nine bases in Pakistan, most of which are in the north. These include several villages for orphans, schools, nurseries, medical and social centres.

Written by Hayley Jarvis for SOS Children