February 21, 2003	Friday	Zul Hijjah 19, 1423

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PESHAWAR, Feb 20: The Human Rights Commission of Afghanistan  (HRCA) has urged the United Nations and other human rights organisations  to use their offices to locate thousands of Afghan children who had gone to Russia during the communist regime in Afghanistan and  facilitate their return. 

In an interview with Dawn, here on Monday, (HRCA) Chairman Lal Gul said that thousands of poor and orphan children, who had lost their parents in the Afghan War, were sent to Russia under a government-sponsored   programme, in order to impart technical training and education to them to make them useful citizens.

Mr Gul claimed that these children also included a large number of girls, who, by now, had now grown into adult persons, had been passing through ordeals, following the disintegration of former Soviet Union.

They were not being extended the facilities, which  had been promised to them under the programme, he said.

He feared that owing to the lack of proper upbringing and education, most of those children were now involved in hard crimes, like, murders, thefts and smuggling of narcotics, ending up in jails.

Furthermore, they did not know the Afghan languages- Persian and Pashto- and only knew Russian language, which would also pose problems  for them on their return.

Mr Gul said that his organisation had conducted a survey inside the 16 post-Soviet states and had found that those Afghans were scattered and it was difficult to locate or know their actual number because neither the states nor the Afghan government had any record of these people.

Being away from their homeland, most of them were ignorant of their  religious, social and cultural norms, which had added to their plight, he added.

He recalled that about 40 Afghans had returned to the country after the fall of the last communist ruler, Dr Najibulah, but their parents disowned them for fear of being punished by Mujahideen, who were strictly opposed to the Soviet regime. Nevertheless, Rabbani-led government wanted these people to come back to their country. Subsequently, the returned people either went back to states from where they had returned or got lost inside Afghanistan.