IT IS by now glaringly obvious that Afghanistan’s cycle of violence must be broken, as much for the sake of the world as for that of the Afghan population itself. There is only one way to finally break that twenty-three year cycle; put the needs of Afghanistan’s ten million children — nearly half of its population — at the top of the international community’s reconstruction agenda.

Millions of Afghans have been born and raised knowing only armed conflict. In a country where the life expectancy is 43 years, only the elderly have memories of a peaceful childhood.

The images have become numbingly familiar, but we must not allow them to slip from our consciousness; thousands of children displaced from their homes inside Afghanistan and across its borders; separated from their families and psychologically scarred. They have been maimed by the presence of tens of thousands of landmines that stud the countryside. And they have been indoctrinated into bearing arms in support of causes they cannot understand.

Fewer than one-third of the boys and fewer than one-tenth of the girls have received even primary school education.

But the cycle must be broken, and the more than fifty nations which gathered in Tokyo on Jan 21 to discuss Afghanistan’s reconstruction and recovery, are in a position to do so.

First, Afghanistan’s own leaders must organize community and national level discussions on the needs, rights and protection of children in the new administration. Only Afghans know what is best for their children, and they must come to a unified decision on how best to support and protect their youth.

Second, the Interim Administration must designate a body at the highest level — a national Afghan council for children — to ensure that the rights and well-being of children are a priority in institutional capacity-building and reform, policies and programmes during the period of reconstruction, including those involving human rights, justice system and reconciliation processes.

Third, the Afghan parties and the international community must ensure that the emergency loya jirga, or Grand Council, mandated to establish the transitional administration, recognizes the rights and well-being of children, particularly girls, in the drafting of the new Afghan constitution. Their rights must be enshrined in law in order to ensure sustained protection.

The international community can make no more important investment in Afghanistan’s future than this: educational programmes for children and youth.

These programmes should include opportunities for displaced youth, street children and girls. Schools are an important unifying element in a society; by creating a system of uniform primary education for all children, Afghanistan can begin to knit together its youth, an essential step in forging a unified whole out of the fractured land.

In addition, giving children recreational activities, particularly children who are displaced from homes and villages, has an important healing effect on traumatized psyches. The donors meeting in Tokyo is a first step towards providing significant resources for the rehabilitation of the children of Afghanistan.

Children can no longer be viewed as secondary to the main issues of war and peace, something to which we turn our attention when we have finished with the bombs and bullets. They hold the balance between war and peace. Youthful victims of violence today are the fanatics and terrorists of tomorrow.

It is in the interest of the whole international community not only to talk about this obvious need, but to bring immediate and sustained resources to the children of Afghanistan. Only then will the cycle of violence and the global uncertainty it has triggered be broken.

The writer is United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict.